A Mix of Things
by Iminika
Summary: Cross over of Creepypasta's.Popular ones, at least.There are many things to fear in ones past-experiences, trauma's, a nightly meeting with Slenderman, nearly being mauled by Smile Dog, the list goes on.Tellia can't tell what is reality and what is just a toxic illusion created by these creatures that take her in the night. Is she one of them?OC X ?No Flames. Reviews are welcome
1. Attack in the Night

Chapter one.

_Something was definitely _not_ right, here._

I raised my head off my pillow, looking around my darkened room. Yes, something was wrong, but I didn't want to get up and find out what it was.

Ignoring the feeling, too tired to be on alert at the moment, I rolled over to face the wall, closing my eyes against the cold. It was nothing to concern myself over, not until morning, at least.

Just as I felt myself slipping a bit deeper into sleep, I was brought back to my conscious by a single, shrill scream of a woman. I jolted from bed, tangled in the sheets, and only managed to land on my face on the floor. That had to have caused enough ruckus to draw whatever was causing the noise. It must be gutting my mother or…

Why would I think that? My _mother_? Was I kidding?!

I try to squirm out of the blankets twisted around my legs, but fail on my first attempt. I stop, quieting my breathing, to listen for other noises. But, hearing none, I began crawling—more like _dragging_—myself across the floor, towards the door. This action caused the rest of the mass of quilts and bedspread to pull off the bed, taking out a side table and shattering an old antique lamp not far from where I was trapped.

"_Really_?" I barely heard myself, because it was then that I noticed the soft squeak of the stairs just around the corner from where my closed bedroom door was located. I stalled my progress for a moment, listening, making sure that it was the stairs making the sound, before I rolled myself onto my back. I struggled to sit up, tugging at the constricting cloth.

My stomach muscles protested angrily, and I laid myself out on my back again, taking a breath to rest—

—Just to become face to face with a figure with a dark blue mask. It hovered, its black sockets pouring black raindrops onto my face. It lunged a second later, blade in hand. I held a scream of terror in when my arms were grabbed and I was whipped onto my back. The impact on the ground knocked oxygen away as I felt my shirt torn away, blade slicing flesh.

I screamed.

On instinct, I snatched up a close shard of the broken lamp, thick and sharp. I twisted through the pain, and slashed the make shift blade into the side of the man's head. It let out an agonized cry as I heard and felt it cut into flesh, dislocating its mask.

It staggered back, into the dark shadows, but I didn't wait, knew it would be back. I thrashed in my bindings, now, and managed to make them untie enough for me to drag myself from them.

I had just gotten to my feet—though I hadn't straightened myself to full height yet—when I felt thin, individual, blade-like claws tear down my back. One cut my previous wound deeper. It retreated upon running out of back surface.

Staggering over to the moonlit window, refusing to fall again, I had begun turning to see what had just attacked me when the man appeared. I was stricken with a paralysis not unlike that of a nightmare. Blank face, tall, clean black suit. I knew I recognized him, but couldn't click the thoughts together when suddenly I was surrounded by thin, snake-like tendrils. They latched onto me, and, as if acting as one, pushed me backwards…

And I was shoved through the glass of the window before I had time to open my mouth. It didn't happen in slow motion, fortunately, but the fall wasn't any more pleasant then that.

I had felt myself land on my back, the heard ground rushing up to meet me, but I must have blinked out, because the next thing I remember was stumbling onto the road, unable to keep my feet under me as I tried to run, to get away from something that was pursuing me.

I scream for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, when I was tackled onto the solid pavement, another blade finding its home in my shoulder. I let out a pathetic cry of pain while the thing pinning me taunted with a smile in its voice.

"What's the matter? Aren't you _tired_?" I struggled weakly as the knife was withdrawn, only to have it returned in a different location, then a different one, and _another and another_ until I could not longer breath, convinced the knife had punctured several important organs.

I knew that I was still alive, although the cold and pain made my body almost numb. I felt the man—or whatever it was—remove his knife a final time, before climbing off me. I waited, barely wincing when a hard kick was delivered to my ribs.

"Go to sleep." Said a whisper right next to my ear. I was familiar with those words, but I couldn't pin point them. I waited in anticipation for something to happen, but there was nothing. Then the man, sounding further off, said, as if walking away, "She's gone."

Was I dead? I could feel, but not much.

A gentle rain had begun, and it began to fall into my wounds, stinging them. The warmth underneath me—my blood perhaps?—was fading, replaced by the icy cold asphalt.

I heard something approach me, with a long stride, shoes crunching on bits of gravel. I tensed, gritting my teeth in pain. I didn't want to move, but that deadening sense of fear and dread was coming closer. It was the faceless man.

_Faceless man…?_

A sound—almost like a whisper, or death—drifted into my thoughts, which only agitated my fear and made me nearly tremble.

_No she isn't…_

My eyes were open in an instant, blinking rapidly to clear the rain. I saw the open road of my street in front of me, with the dread coming closer from behind. In a fit of flight, I forced myself up, into a desperate run. My bare feet were torn up on the harsh black top, their bones aching with cold.

My attempts did _nothing_, though. I had gone a good thirty yards, away from the dread, and away from the creatures, when a voice whispered right behind me:

"_You should not have done that_."

I heard myself scream before everything was consumed in black.


	2. Confusion

Chapter two

I heard the roar and crunch of impacting vehicles. I was jolted forward, and soon found myself in free fall, a wall of water flying towards the front wind shield. I remember blinking and waking up on the bank of the river, seeing the city on fire. The river water had turned scalding and the sky was a deep crimson.

But all I had been seeing was all an illusion, the doctors told me. I couldn't _really_ see devastating things; I couldn't predict what would happen.

They were right, but it didn't stop my crazed mind from conjuring them up. I remember my mother sitting next to my bed at the hospital, a rotting, disfigured hand on my arm. Cold, but warm. Her face was broken and bloody and I couldn't look her in the eye, faked amnesia. They say the car crash took its toll, as most did, but I knew that the car crash had caused something to wake up in my head. Something I was both curious and terrified of.

But some horrors just don't come from ones mind playing tricks on them.

I woke up in a bed, one that was almost as comfortable as my own, but the feel of it felt like that of a hospital bed. White sheets surrounded by white floors and white walls. The thought of it made me tremble, remembering the treatments I endured at the hands of amateur doctors and heartless nurses.

I found myself lying on my stomach; felt a blanket covering just my waist down. I was completely without clothing, and my hair fell in tangled curls over my face. I struggled to move, but was met with resistance from my hands and ankles. The bedframe budged slightly, feeling the chains constricting my movements. Adding more to the uneasiness, was the blindfold, tied tightly around my head.

The silence was disrupted whenever I tried to gain freedom from the metal confining me. It jangled and clicked against the metal bed post, echoing away. My struggles caused the blanket to slip down my legs, exposing me to whatever might be around to observe. My back felt tight, and I remembered my wounds, and then I remembered the creatures that had caused them…

After hearing nothing but complete silence aside from my own movements, I began to panic. Why was I here? What did those things want me for?

The blanket slid off my legs, landing with a muffled _phuhmp_. I thought, perhaps, that it had fallen on its own, but the dread soon returned, and I began to cower. I briefly heard the chains rattling against the head board as my trembling shook the bed. I managed to shut my mouth against whimpering, though. I wouldn't give it the satisfaction—whatever it was…

I jumped in fright something touched my head and I tried to pull myself away from it, further into the bed, but failed. I recognized it to be a hand.

"So, you've decided to keep this one?" I startled at that familiar voice—the last one I had heard before I was thrown into unconsciousness.

The hand trailed off my head, and my adrenaline was sapped from me. I felt increasingly vulnerable now.

A new voice—the 'Go to sleep' one—joined the discussion.

"You could have picked a weaker one. This one put up too much of a fight." Even as he said it, I could hear the smile in his voice.

A small silence.

Then, angrily, "Jeff, you need to go to look out. Slenderman's orders." There was a brief objection when the 'Go to sleep' man said that Slenderman hadn't said a word, but cut off suddenly before the other one could argue back.

A sharp pain struck through my back—the familiar feel of a blade—and I didn't make a sound. My entire body felt feverish as someone let out a cry of protest and the blade was quickly removed.

"You must have drugged this one too well, Slendy." Jeff giggled, before he left.

A pain spread from my back, up my spine. It pounded into my head and I gritted my teeth through the pain. My face was aflame, and I barely heard the other man ask if they could unchain me.

_I'll do it. You go attend to Jeff, Ben._

There was a close of a door after a second or two, and I was left again with the uneasy silence. I felt sick and in agony.

I must have blacked out, because I woke up screaming from a nightmare, curled on the bed, the sheet wrapped around me. I was in a room, alone. It was a small square thing, with a single yellow light illuminating the room. My bed was placed in almost the exact middle of it; a door was tucked into an indent in the wall, made of metal and presumably locked.

The nightmare had been all too familiar, something about torture and ponies and cupcakes and—I don't want to remember all of it. I checked myself, to make sure that I was still in one piece. I was _scared_. I didn't want to _be_ here!

There was a knock not too long after I assured myself to be whole, and I watched, wrapped in a sheet for protection, as the metal door swung inward.

Standing in the doorway was an ominous-looking woman. She had raven black hair, and porcelain white skin. Her lips and eyes were pitch black, and she smiled with them. I don't know how I could tell with the abyss of darkness in her features.

"Hello," She sounded kind, and gave a slight wave. "You're finally awake. The boss kept telling me that it would take a few days for the symptoms to wear off, but you _seem_ fine, child."

Something snapped out, using my voice, "I am _not_ a child!" I was startled as the woman was at my outburst, but I stood my ground, not backing down as her pleasant beauty turned into a hateful glare. It all seemed so familiar. I knew her.

Then I remembered her name. That was Jane the killer.

"Why am I here?" I shakily said. The silence had grown too thick.

She smiled, like I knew she would, saying, "Our boss wants to keep you, so we can't help but be his little loyal _servants_." She said her last word with bitterness.

"Slenderman?" My memory jumped at the name, imaging the extremely thin and tall creature. I had seen him before, when I was little. The man scared me at first, but only because I was startled by the tentacles. He had been kind and had become a friend in my need. I remember him clearly giving me an apple as a present once.

Jane smiled sourly. It tainted her beauty.

"At least a rat such as yourself knows about him." I ignore her, tempted to snap at her again. She laughs cruelly. "I heard he likes to collect lost animals, but I'm sure you won't last as long as the last. _That_ one went a week, but was offed by Jack. He prefers to eat bad meat." She _hmphed_, a sign of arrogance, and told me that if I wanted food, I would follow her.

I did follow her eventually, but not without taking the sheet with me, to cover myself. I was wrapped up like a ghost as I followed the monster out the door.

We were intercepted in the dark hallways by a growling beast. Jane stood back, leaving me open to attack. She seemed uneasy around the dog, and kept quiet, avoiding its dark gaze.

It padded over to me, and I seen that it was a simple dog, just with a smile.

"Hello," I whispered to the dog, but didn't look at the dog, reaching out a hand.

"What is your name?" I wasn't at _all_ disturbed that it was a talking dog. The pain in my head started to return, blurring my thought process.

"Tellia."

Jane let out a cackling, and the dog let out a chuckle of its own.

"Thank you for your name. I shall call to you soon." It was gone along with the pain in my head. I realized my mistake as Jane finished her laughing, and cast a smirk over her shoulder.

"Oh ya, you _definitely_ won't last long. Not after Smile Dog plays a bit."

Something snarled in my head, something far away, but I ignored it.

"Where are we going?"

"Didn't I tell you earlier? Or is your intelligence not enough to hold simple information? In fact, you just signed your death just a—"

"Will you just answer my god damn question so I can—" I didn't make it that far, because she had spun around and back handed me across the face. I was on my hands and knees, glaring death at the innocent floor.

"I'd kill you myself. Keep your tone down, there are things trying to sleep down here." She nudged me in the side with an ungentle kick. "Find your own way out of the catacombs, then." And she left me.

Alone.

I closed my eyes, trying to keep myself in my right mind. There was no need to slip out of sanity because of a little hit, a little pain. But the memories flooded back once the silence set in.

…

_My mother had always been someone who loved to have things perfect. She wouldn't leave the house unless every last possession she owned was spick and span, not a flaw to be seen. And she almost had it right—had she not had me._

_ I was her only flaw, I was the only error, and I paid the price for that._

I'm still paying to price for my mother's perfect.


	3. Memories of the Tall Man

CHAPTER THREE

_No matter how much I tried to prevent the images from returning, I couldn't forget my mother's dead face, the face I was seeing, as she yelled at me about manners and medication. I would always argue that she wasn't my real mother (still faking amnesia), and that I didn't have to listen to her._

_All those times I yelled back at her, I expected to be thrown out of the house. But my mother liked to keep her mistakes close at hand, so others didn't find out about them. My mothers killed my father because he threatened to leave her (a mistake in a relationship? Or a witness to the beating of a nine year old child?) He was still buried under her bedroom floor, bones blended up to dust. Her and her little 'Sewing Club' was responsible for that. _

_They did everything together, and it just happened to be at one of their little gatherings that my father stumbled down the basement stairs and snapped a leg. I was living down there at the time and was startled from my dark corner by the noise. I heard my father's cursing yells, but they had descended to him before he could make enough noise to wake the neighbors. They all cut him up with unique knives, all wearing a mask._

_I faked sleep and didn't respond, and I got no sleep that night because of roar of the meat grinder, and the industrial-type blenders that my father kept in the basement._

_That next day, when my mother took the Sewing Club out to get new clothing (their old ones got a little dirty from the night before), I debated whether to escape out of the unlocked front door and run down to the police station._

_In the end, I decided to do just that. Just to give an anonymous message to them, to tell them what really happened…_

_I was just outside of the house from the backdoor, when I heard the familiar sound of a car turning into our drive. A moment later the sound of multiple car doors opening followed by the irritating cackles of the Sewing Clubs laughter flowed into the yard. _

_Frozen to the spot, I knew that if I stayed I would be caught, I would be punished. There was no way that I would be able to enter the house again and return to my basement corner without one of them hearing. Every step of the floor was covered in creaks, and the doors squeaked with each inch they were moved._

_I was trapped between returning to face the music of my horribly thought out plan, or running into the woods behind the house, because I knew that it was a short cut into town without using the main roads._

_I chose the woods._

_I had known every tree and twig like the back of my hand, because I would often visit them in the nights before my father was killed and my mother decided to be more cautious and lock every door and window. _

_I had just breached the tree line, remembering where to step so I wouldn't get tangled in the underbrush. I glanced back at the fading house, knowing which ways to turn, so I wouldn't stray to far from where the town was located._

_I had reached an opening, stumbling out of it at the last second. There had been no outraged call from the Sewing Club, or any noisy pursuit. They hadn't seen me leave, and might not even know that I am gone yet. This was great._

_Sunlight shone warmly through the canopy of trees. Telling myself that I would only give myself a five minute break, I crawled to the center of the content circle of light-covered grass, and relaxed with a sigh as I closed my eyes. As long as I wasn't caught before I reached the police station, I could still tell them. Everything would still be ok…_

_An icy drop of water fell onto my face like a tear. I opened my eyes and my heart instantly plummeted from the dreary sight of the sky. The once cheery blueness had turned into a grey haze, a dark misty fog settling over the sun, making it unseeable, like sunlight had never existed. The mist had settled over the trees as well, slicking the grass with dew and preventing visual range from going any farther then twenty feet._

_Then I noticed my clothing was drenched, weighing me down. How long had I been sleeping?_

_I stood up, feeling suddenly cold on that summer's day. The woods felt dreadful, now, like something was waiting just behind my range of sight, waiting to—_

_The scream that echoed through the trees didn't help put me at any kind of ease. I stepped back from where I thought the sound had come from, and then turned and ran from the clearing, ran towards where I knew town would be located. The Sewing Club was _out _here, they were here to get me!_

_I stumbled, falling hard, everything seeming unfamiliar now, like everything had been misplaced. Where were the pine trees? And the small cluster of young saplings? Why wasn't the fallen oak bordering the trail that let towards town?_

_Something darted out from the brush and collided into me, sending my nine year old self flying. There was a frightened apology and the man dashed off again, leaving me wounded, blood trickling from my encounter with the jagged sticks and stones._

_I forced myself to stand, the fog muffling all other screeches and cries of panic and fear. A final scream shot at me from the direction the man had ran into, and I flinched against the sound, collapsing against the rough bark of the tree I had been leaning again._

_What was going _on_? Where _was _I?_

…

_Why was that tall man…?_

_The figure stood at the edge of my vision in the fog. He stood unrealistically tall, a tangled, black mass of shadows convulsed behind him. A single tendril would split apart from the group and wrap itself around a nearby tree. It was then that I realized that it was moving closer slowly, because I barely noticed or looked at his feet as it approached._

_His step was like a predator, quick like a snail—once you looked away from it, then back, you realized that it had moved further then you had expected. _

_The more I looked at him, the more the pain in my head grew, so I had to look away. The dread was radiating off of him, and I would glance at him every few seconds, seeing his faceless head coming further into view. An edge of his perfect black suit dripped with rainwater, like he had been outside during a storm._

_Something alerted me that I was in danger, and the sight of the faceless man only made that statement ever truer. I jumped up, adrenaline ready to send me further into the trees, away from this man, but I cried out when my wounds protested, a sharp agony in my ankle told me it was either broken or unusable without some sort of endurance or splint._

_So I settled with crawling around the tree, to block out the sight of man. But that didn't work as my nine year old mind had planned. I couldn't just make myself invisible after I had been found. It was like trying to hide behind a narrow lamp post—it was impossible._

_The thin man was silent in his approach, and I was nearly startled again when I seen him round the tree to directly reach me. I gave the man one last look when he was crouched in front of me, perfectly still._

_Then I hid my face, trembling in fear and hypothermia, crying._

_I don't know how long he stayed like that, watching me, but I know that it felt like forever. It was forever as I wished to be back in my basement corner, taking abuse from the Sewing Club and being taunted—_Where is your daddy? Don't you miss your daddy?—_and attacked._

_When something had happened, it took me a moment to notice it. I remember something lightly touched the top of my head, and I glanced up to see a mass of color in the curl of one of the tentacles. The fruit was a deep red and was left unharmed by the creature, who continued to crouch and watch me without eyes._

_Once it knew my attention was on it, the apple descended to my eye level…_

_And I remember slowly reaching out towards it…_


	4. But father's dead

CHAPTER FOUR

My thoughts flittered away in an instant, because I couldn't face what happened next, didn't want to think of it.

I stood, ignoring the pain that was now coursing through one side of my face. I picked up the ivory sheet from the ground, not wanting to wander around completely exposed—especially if the creatures had a temper like Jane.

I decided against following the path that Jane took, so I turned tail and headed back down the hall, my thoughts flaring up with information, this time, instead of memories.

Firstly, my thoughts went straight to last night. Was it last night? I had to have slept for more then a night, right? Well, anyway, That Night, we'll call it.

That Night, the night I just knew that something was wrong. What had happened first?

I pulled the sheet tighter around myself, not hearing a sound around me. Yes, now I remember. I fell out of bed with I heard my mom scream… And got tangled in the sheets—which left me increasingly vulnerable to that masked guy's attack. Who was he? Jack? Eyeless Jack?

Yes! The cannibal who stole kidneys. That one was the first to attack me. But how had he gotten into my room, my doors and windows were all locked. And Slenderman made his entrance with my door opening. Maybe both Jack and that other creature had hid in my room before I went to bed, and then it was Slenderman creeping up the stairs…

I sigh. This was too much thinking, and it was all worthless, because I would never know the true facts. I narrow my eyes at the floor as I walked…

Well. It was worth a try to try and come up with what really happened, right? I had been sleeping, than was awoken by my mother's scream… _No_… It had been the _feeling_. The feeling that something was wrong, something wasn't right. Why was that? A hunch that something bad was happening?

I giggle lightly to myself. Since I exited from my bedroom window—on the second story-, maybe they took care of my mother and her Sewing Club. That would just make my day, no matter if I was being held captive by monsters of legend.

What happened next?

I was woken up by the hunch, jumped out of bed by my mothers scream, and then was attacked by Jack. I attacked him, and got loose, but was blindsided by that other thing. What had _that_ been? I racked my brain for something with claws… The Rake? He seemed pretty matching in the description. Had the Rake done that?

Let's go with it. The feeling, the scream, Eyeless Jack, and then the Rake. Then Slendy came to throw me out a window. What then?

I stopped walking, believing I had finally heard something.

Jeff the Killer, right? He was the Go to Sleep man? He had a knife, yes. Great.

Then who?

"_You should not have done that_." I startle, and hear a small chuckle. I turn and faced the voice. It was BEN. His statue-like form stood much shorter then me, but I was certain that he was the last piece of the puzzle for That Night.

"What have I done?" I was answered with a creepy giggle. I didn't know his status on friendship between us, but, from what I heard when earlier in his talk with Jeff and Slenderman, he neither likes me nor dislikes me. I can't tell if I like that or not. I had always preferred to hear about the BEN legends.

There was another giggle, which sounded like another character of the game he originated from. But BEN didn't really originate from a game, now, did he? He was simply a spirit that took the form of a digital thing, right?

"It isn't wise to wander the corridors alone. Most of the things that live in these rooms don't take heed to Slenderman's warning."

The statue disappears, but reappears closer, facing one of the hallway walls.

"Can I see Slenderman, BEN?" There was a silence, and, because the statue can't move its head, I presume the answer to that question was a _no_. "Why am I here, BEN?"

"I can't tell you _why_ exactly. All I can say is that Slenderman wanted you."

Fear seized my throat, refusing me breath. My head started to pulse with pain, like my heart and brain had switched locations. There was an almost yearning curiosity to find the thin man, but my memories kept me in line.

_I cried tears as red as that apple. He made them, and I couldn't stop him, I couldn't—_

"Hey!" I jump slightly, feeling the sheet fall away from my grasp. It pools at my feet, but I don't pick it up, just allow myself to be exposed in this hallway full of death, and watching eyes.

"What?" I didn't sound like myself. I close my eyes against the pain.

"I asked you if you knew what happened to me…?" He sounded almost sad. I didn't want to tell him, even though he knew already. I couldn't tell him that he drowned…

"No," I lied. But I stopped myself from saying more, and that is what gave away my lie. Because I had not continued to ask that curious question—_What happened to you, BEN_.

There was a growl, and I flinched back, away from the statue. But he wasn't a statue anymore, was he? Behind the unmoving face, I saw the small glow of a soul. Looking deeper, I seen it was that of a boy. Of the real BEN, outside the face of the statue of the game character.

The image of the real boy was gone in an instant, and so was the statue. BEN fazed away as he had appeared, and I was left to collect the dirtied sheet from the floor once more, and continue on my way—down the corridor of death.

I reached the end of the hallway, where a door of steel awaited, unlocked. The moment I pushed open that door, the entire corridor behind me was flooded with light. The pain in my head increased once the door was fully open, so much that I could barely think properly. My usual debating self, the one that would tell me whether or not they thought it was safe to pass through the door or not, wasn't present. I may have heard their far off whisper, but everything was obliterated in the mental agony.

I stepped through it, and was instantly hit in the face with the scent of the sea. There was a stone ledge running along to the left and right, with a metal balcony to ensure that sightseers wouldn't topple over the edge into…

It was the ocean. The sound of water lapping against stone was heard far below, and I looked over the balcony to see that the waves were hundreds of feet below me. The expanse of the water went to the horizon, bathed in sparkly white light. It was under a lighter blue sky, and the sun shone warmly as a white sphere.

The image made me smile through the pain, almost ignoring the rage inside my head.

But, like all happy times I had ever managed to witness for myself, something had to come along and ruin the image, ruin the moment.

I remembered what Slenderman did…

I closed my eyes, remembering every detail, but not recalling myself being his victim…

Slenderman had _killed me_, right?

But, no. I was still _here_. I was still _alive_, still _breathing_. There was nothing here that could tell me I _wasn't_. What the hell was _wrong_ with me?

Voices dripped outside from through the open doorway. I opened my eyes, turning towards the dark abyss beyond the door.

"_Shut the door. The light. Shut the door. Shut the door._" It was a wail of different voices all mingling as one, like the lost souls of the damned. "_Please. Shut the door. The light. Please_."

Obliging the voices, hoping they weren't from my own head, I walked to the door and began pulling it shut. _Thank you_'s were muttered just as the door shut, and all was silent after. I shrugged, and turned to go back to the balcony—

A glimpse of a certain thin limbed man caught my attention just before he disappeared into the doorway further down the ledge walkway to the right. Slenderman was usually very cautious about who saw him. _Usually_. What wasn't to say that I wasn't supposed to be out here, and just chanced a sighting? Highly unlikely. If he wanted to ensure that I did exactly as he asked, then he would have invested in some more trustworthy people. Jane wasn't that sort, and because I already know she would kill me without a second glance, I wasn't going to tell her directly myself.

As I felt my feet moving towards where the suited man had disappeared to, I started telling myself that I needed to just kill my curiosity every once in a while and follow simple impulses. Ya, sure, curiosity killed the cat, but I have nine lives and you I'm saving all those other times of curiosity death for the _future_.

Liquid dread seemed to seep down my spine as I got closer. I was waiting in anticipation for anything to happen—for Slendy to jump out and tear me to shreds—for Slendy to just be standing there, staring at me without eyes…

What I found when I reached the indentation in the wall—which should have signaled a door—was the decayed face of a man I thought I would never see again. Pinned to the wall, smiling at me with blood spilling from his eyes was my—

_Father_…


	5. Don't Remember

Chapter five

I threw myself backwards, feeling my back hit the steel balcony railing. The corpse of my father addressed me by full name. It spoke perfect sentences as if his entrails weren't dangling from him, as if he didn't have blades impaling him in the chest.

"How's my little girl…"

It took me maybe a _second_ to take everything in. In the next, I was screaming. The pain had intensified, and the ocean below the balcony was no longer blue or shiny with light. It had turned black, and it climbed the walls of stone towards this balcony. My father kept telling me how I was his little girl, his _good_ girl.

I was always his good little girl…

"_Tellia_!" I blink, and there was no corpse of my father pinned to the steel door, there was no murderous ocean. There was just Jane crouching in front of me. I felt tears on my face, and I turned away from her, to hide them. But she had already seen, and surely she had heard my screams. "I shouldn't have left you in there. You shouldn't be out here, Tellia."

I turn and glare at her. She glares back with dark eyes. I growl at her, "Take me to Slenderman. _He_ wanted me, so I want to _see_ him." My vision wavers, and I clutch at her for support. "_Now_." She opened her mouth to say something, but I had collapsed against her.

I struggled to free myself from the hold of unconsciousness, but it was hopeless.

"Let him have you, Tellia."

Who?

But I was already out of it.

I woke up in a cold sweat, having redreamt the same 'Cupcakes' dream… where I took the role of the unfortunate Rainbow Dash…

"Finally awake?" I was too exhausted to move my head around to the voice. The pillow under my head felt heavenly, but the rest of me was chilled and icy. I looked down at myself and found myself still naked, and a little creature perched at the end of the bed, looking up at me with big eyes. I slowly blink, and barely open my eyes again before I see it dash under the bed, a faint metallic gleam following.

"I didn't know I was out." My words tumbled out in a drunken mess, my own voice causing a dull throb to return to my head. "Where…?"

I heard a chuckle, and the creature popped up next to the bed, a scalpel in one paw-like hand. I felt my heart flare up in fear at seeing this, but it only laughed, as if reading my mind, and told me that it wouldn't hurt me. I doubted its words, but I didn't feel like I would be able to get up for a while.

"I heard your screams…" That sentence would have been the creepiest thing I had ever heard, had it not been paired up with a concerned face. He fumbled the gleaming knife in his hands, unable to say more.

"It's not like you haven't heard screaming before," I watch for an expression, my gaze unwavering. "What are they planning on doing with me?" I hoped he understood that I wasn't talking about their boss, and I hoped he understood I meant Slenderman.

The small creature grew worried, and turned his gaze to looking around the room, almost suspiciously, as if he thought something was watching us. He set the scalpel down on a metal table I hadn't noticed before, and walked away from the bed. I was about to yell at him, force it to answer my questions, but I seen it messing with one of the small metal doors that could belong to a morgue.

A click sounded, and the small creature spoke as he opened the door.

"He is very particular about what he wants done. But he is very simple in his rules. We don't let you leave, for one. We are also not allowed to bring you to him, or tell you anything about him." I had been correct about the morgue doors, as I watched the small creature slide a long metal tray out of the wall.

There wasn't a body on it, however, just a series of jars and bottles, filled with different blood and liquids. I laid my head back onto the pillow, tired of holding my head up. The ceiling above me was covered in claw marks, and drenched in blood. There was a single, metal grate just above the bed. It seemed large enough to fit someone, but was too far up for me to reach if even if I tried.

The creature continued, "My job, here, is to doctor those that need it. Some of them are just plain careless, and most heal themselves." He paused. "Speaking of which… They say that the Man picked you out of the line up because you were just another one of his picks… But, I noticed—the wounds from your capture had disappeared after Jane tried to escort you out. BEN told me—he has an eye for these things."

"I don't know what you're getting at." I growl at him, getting impatient. "I don't see your—"

"The Rake doesn't just _not_ leave his mark, Tellia. And Jack and Jeff both told me that they cut you up pretty good."

I forced myself to sit up, practically flinging myself upwards in my anger. I nearly collapsed onto the bed, but managed enough. The movement caused more pained poison to seep into my head, making me hear my pulse more then feel it.

"I—" I managed a single syllable before a sharp pain in my chest signaled a coughing fit. The first cough was small, more like a throat clearing, but the second, and the third, and the ninth and twelve casts out blood. The hand I had put up to cover the cough was quickly slick with blood.

The little creature had hurried towards the side of the bed, which was now a bright crimson, soaking the surface in red. The liquid had been flung off the bed, and coated the surrounding tile floor, gurgling into a nearby drain.

By the time I had stopped, the pain in my chest had left, and my vision was dizzy. The small, nameless creature could do nothing but watch my gasping mouth streaming with blood, barely able to keep myself upright anymore.

I closed my eyes—trying to clear my head—when I was suddenly trapped in a memory loop, remembering what happened after the tall man had given me the apple.

_The tendrils had appeared, tightening around my small, nine year old body. I had tried to scream, but the tentacles had constricted all the air from my lungs. I remember grasping weakly at them._

_Then I was flying._

_I know that I was, because I was climbing through the trees, going higher and higher. Was I dead? Was I drifting to heaven?_

_Then I was dropped._

_From above the tallest tree I had ever see, it was twisted and mangled, leafless. For a split second I felt bad for the tree—while the rest of the trees were dressed in colorful green leaves, this one was naked._

_Open ground hadn't been waiting for me at the bottom._

_The territory of the forest must have brought out the creative side of the thin man, because, when I reached the ground, jagged, hand-crafted spikes pointed horizontally towards the sky. They were made out of splintered pieces of tree limb, and discarded material. I remember seeing glinting metal in my last twirl through the air. The air had returned, too late to use, but I still couldn't scream._

_Then I hit—_

"_Tellia_." My eyes opened to see the creature holding a jar. It was filled to the brim in neon orange sludge, and looked to be crawling around inside the glass. As I eyed it, I felt the strangest sense of curiosity run away the fear. Without me asking, the small creature handed over the jar. "I thought I lost you there for a second." I force a laugh at this.

"You don't have to worry about you losing me, because I'm already gone." I couldn't force a smile, though.

The little creature glared slightly. "That's not funny. We've had dozens pass through here that couldn't take the discoveries—"

"Ya, ya, I heard about the other people Slenderman's brought here. Most don't survive because the other monsters get fed up with them. I already have a few disliking me right now." I tried to get the creature to smile, but he just scowled.

"No, actually, none of us are allowed to kill who Slenderman brings here." Really? Then what was all that about—? "At least, unless Slenderman thinks they're a lost cause, that is."


	6. Disovery

CHAPTER SIX

The creature—who told me its name was Mr. Widemouth—allowed me a few more hours of sleep, but in a different room. They had to call in a helper—a little masked guy, who also seemed familiar. I was surprised that he was able to carry me out of the room.

"Take her into room eleven;" Was what Mr. Widemouth said as we exited the morgue-like room. "I'll be there in a minute." I wasn't all too uncomfortable being carried like a bride, and I couldn't tell the emotions of my carrier, because of… well—the _mask_.

The masked man walked down the hallway for a few minutes, my eyes glued to the silver plaques on the doors. Room four, seven, ten.

We passed right by number eleven, not a hesitation, or a glance.

I was about to speak up when suddenly the door to room eleven, and all those before it, threw themselves open. I felt myself flinch at the sound of metal striking metal, and the guy in the mask held on tighter.

Then he ran, taking off down the hallway as we were pursued by things I didn't want to see. What the hell were they? What did they want?

!

My vision blurred, becoming fuzzy. I tried to focus on the swirl of grey doors and white walls, trying to read the numbers as we ran along. The white lights that glared down on us from the ceiling began to dim, becoming more shadowy, more gloomy. I blinked, and everything had been thrown into pitch blackness, but I seen nothing moving. I still felt the masked man running, his breath labored from carrying me, but I didn't _see_ him running, I didn't _see_ the doors flying by in the dark. I didn't even see the after image shapes in the blackness, what was going—

The masked man let out a cry as his stride faltered, and he pitched forward, propelling me from his arms. I flew, rolling across the solid tile floor that I could only feel, never see. The abrupt landing felt like it crushed my chest, and I felt blood in my lungs, forcing its way up from my gut. I struggled to crawl to my knees, but a feral snarl alerted me of things I could not see in the darkness.

I didn't scream this time. I endured the pain as the creature leapt on me, crushing me further into the ground with its impossible weight. I felt something snap, and the blood showered the floor as the liquid splattered across it.

My consciousness was curling in on itself, wanting me to shut down, to fall into sleep. I had become unaware that the creature was tearing into my arm, shredding the meat and muscle. It all blended into the dark nothingness.

I remembered back to when the faceless man had killed me. I was spiked on several tree branches when he crept towards me. I remember wanting to die, to be anywhere besides there. The thin man was always graceful in his murdering and wounding. He didn't quicken his pace, didn't move any faster then I had ever seen him more. Almost like the pace of a snail—when you weren't looking, he was the fastest man in the world.

Returning to reality, I blinked again, realizing that the creature was no longer eating me. Or maybe he was. Maybe I had lost all feeling, or I was already dead?

But I felt the cold of the tile floor beneath my bare feet, and the metallic, sweet taste of blood. I blinked, and I could _feel_ myself blink.

There was a distant call, the voice echoing to me, as if from a long hallway. I blinked again, and again, until my vision was clear of the blackness, and I was seeing the white walls of the corridor me and masked man had been travelling—or _one _of them. I'm sure most of them looked the same. The lights still glared, and I was _cold_.

"Tellia!" I blinked again, and looked at the mass of red at my feet.

Those whatever-they-were creatures lay as mangled remains on my side of the corridor. Blood streamed down the hallway, away from me. I didn't recognize the faces of the creatures, but I knew that they had been one of a kind, and they were now dead. Pale slabs of skin lay flayed around me, some were pinned to the walls and ceiling by shards of bone.

The rain was blood. It dripped and dropped from the ceiling in nice globs, creating thick, spider-webby effects on their way to the ground. The heads of the monsters were strung up in pieces too small to be recognized as what they used to be.

I found myself smiling—

"Hey!" I step back as the entire hallway turned into something grotesque and rotting, with eyes that watch me, and a mouth waiting to munch my bones.

I turned and ran, fleeing down the end of the darkened hallway—about ready to spin around a corner heading right—when the faceless man blinked in front of me. I was moving too quickly to stop myself, and I was welcomed with a jolt of mind breaking pain as I ran into him, instantly being entangled by the black tendrils around him.

I could hear my heart beat again, pounding away in my chest, blocking out all sound in my head as I was forced to look at his eyeless face, at the blank expression that likely didn't have a soul.

It was in those non-eyes, that I discovered I hadn't died once, yet.


	7. Hello Death

CHAPTER SEVEN

I didn't expect to wake up ever again. I didn't expect to see the morning sun shining in through my window, or my mother's aggressive yell through the floor boards, telling me to get my ass out of bed.

I tried to sit up, but found myself tangled in the sheets. The thick night gown I wore was suffocating me, and I pulled myself out from the cocoon of cloth.

Another angry yell sounded from at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a raging storm of feet pounding on the stairs when there was no answer on my end. I stumbled to get out of bed, and had managed to set one foot on the ground when my mother and her group practically busted down the door to my room.

"We leave for a week, and you stay in _bed_?!" I wasn't quick enough to block the attack she aimed at my face. I hit the ground before I could have thought to even protect myself, or try and protest my opinion. Her posse fled from my room like obedient dogs, and watched from the doorway, eyes cruel. "Take your medication and get to school, slut."

I waited until I heard every last set of footsteps go down the stairs and out the front door. They were off to somewhere, and I was stuck here like a little Cinderella. But I'm sure that even Cinderella wasn't called a _slut_. Or was she?

I didn't know, and I didn't really care. Picking myself up off the floor was something that I did quite a lot when they were home. The Sewing Club almost never left my mothers side, so they all practically _lived_ here. It should have been easy—just ignore their comments, and go about my day. I had always been good at one of the things. The _just ignoring their comments_ part. I always had a difficult time going about my day, because I never had a day to go about. No friends, bad reputation, no life _period_.

But this time was different. I couldn't perform Step One correctly. I couldn't get back up from her words, and it wasn't even her words' fault.

My mothers normal aggressions drained me of the last endurance I had. I just laid there on the floor, in the weak morning light, curled around myself, trying not to shed any tears of distress.

I had had another dream—the Cupcakes one. Again. But this time it was different. Usually, I would take the form of Rainbow Dash, and was slowly killed through Pinkie Pie's horrendous actions.

This time, however…

I was Pinkie Pie…

I remember first reading the story, and then I heard the audio version from someone on YouTube. The first time, I had felt so bad for Dash, and couldn't quite put together how the other pony could be so twisted, so—_evil_…

But now I knew, or thought I knew. I had felt some kind twisted satisfaction from taking the role of Pinkie Pie as she mutilated her friend. I was laughing and giggling along with the pink pony, while the other screamed and cried and—

_What in all fucking hell is _wrong _with me?!_

I found myself screaming, so loud in my small room. My voice fractured when I started crying, gripping my hair, ripping and tearing, so I could cipher out some of the feelings and emotions.

Taking in one shaky breath after another, I managed to calm down. I managed to stand, and I managed to stumble out of my room without another sob coming from me.

I made it to the bathroom doorway before my legs went weak from the face staring back at me. The red face and glittering eyes watched me as I stepped inside, heading to the mirror to examine the face.

_I hadn't just been dreaming. My mother is _dead—_I _heard _her last scream. I didn't just drop into a pill coma. Those things were _real_. Slenderman and Smile Dog and BEN were _real!

I start the shower, and leave the bathroom, descending the stairs into the living room. The Sewing Club was definitely gone, their car was gone. I enter into the kitchen, and fling open drawers of silverware and utensils, searching. I dance around the tile, avoiding scattered forks and spoons, searching every drawer.

Not finding that specific blade, I leave the kitchen to search the sewing room. Aside from bolts of cloth and needles and thread, I don't find it anywhere in plain view, which was odd. Unless my mother took it with her, it was always laying around the house for her to use when she was threatening to cut my wrists. She would always say that the blood would drain all the evil from me, the mistakes that she created herself, that were imprinted in my genes. She said that it would make me feel better, would make me a better daughter.

I wasn't going to try and be a better _anything_, I just needed the knife to stain a bathtub. And I found it, lying just underneath the side of my mothers bed. I snatch it and return upstairs, locking the front door on the way—no need for disturbances.

But once I'm completely naked in the pure white shower, standing beneath scalding water, holding the shiny blade in my hands, I hesitated. I knew I had to make sure everything I witnessed wasn't just inside my head. I had to be sure.

I had just placed the flat side of the blade on my bare leg—ready to turn it and slice flesh—when the power flipped off in the bathroom. I heard the hum of lights buzz off. The dark settled into small shower, and I grew fearful of what was outside the opaque, white curtain.

Deciding it was better to just let the lights be dealt with later, I pushed my paranoia aside, and sat on the small ledge on the opposite side of the shower curtain, just outside the rain of the water. I repositioned the blade to the underside of my wrist, took a deep breath, and _sliced_—

I had expected it to hurt, as all wounds usually do, but this hadn't. Not much, at least. I watched the blood spill over into the bath tub, some dripping onto my leg, and it swirled down the drain.

_CRACK!_

I couldn't help but yelp in terror when the thunder shook the house. I caught my breath back when I had determined the sound, sighing with relief and nearly laughing at my own cowardice.

I stopped breathing when I began to question when a storm had moved in—this close that I would feel the thunder like this. It had been early morning not too long ago. When had the storm—

Another crash, but not before an eerie glow of lightning illuminated the pale bathroom. I couldn't see exactly what it lit up when it shone through the small bathroom window, because I refused to peek out from behind the curtains of the shower. I hoped it was just a regular bathroom, and no one was standing in the far corner, waiting—

_Stop it_.

I gave my arm another vicious cut, feeling myself tense as more blood ran.

_Stop it_.

Another and another cut, lacerating legs and arms, flesh and skin.

_Stop_.

I gazed down at the darkened tub floor, even darker with crimson.

_STOP IT!_

Another growl of thunder covered up the cry of fear that had escaped. The blade clattered into the tub, barely missing my foot, as if that mattered. All I heard was my breathing, and the far off rumbles. My heart was strangely silent as I listened to the drum of rain above me. The shower was also quiet, like the storm outside stomped out every other sound…

I returned to my bedroom after dressing every wound. My plan to tell myself that all that I went though—my kidnapping and period of misery—had been _real_. I had wanted the pain to remind myself of the pain I had experienced in this bedroom. That didn't happen. The pain had been numbed away, like something didn't want me to feel it.

I stared at my digital clock, waiting for it to flicker back on and tell me the incorrect time. I would check my cell constantly, watching as the hours went by without me noticing. It wasn't like I needed to know the time. I was just waiting, after all.

After the stone-grey storm clouds turned to pitch blackness, I set my phone on the side table—next to the antique lamp that was still unbroken—and laid down for some much needed rest.

I expected to be woken up from my slumber by that same 'Something isn't right' feeling. But, this time, I woke gently, with great comfort, aside from my many gauze wrapped wounds. I was still in my bed, above the blankets. There was no suspicious feeling that I was being watched. There was just… _silence_.

The storm still had not passed by eight in the morning, and the sky held a silvery overcast, just dark enough to hide the sun, but light enough to let some of its rays glow through the clouds.

Checking the front window of my room told me that the Sewing Club had not returned, and that I had the opportunity to sneak downstairs for some much needed breakfast—since I hadn't ate a morsel since I've been away, or been back.

Just before I left my room, I stopped and checked every dark corner and crevice. There had to have been a way for The Rake and Eyeless Jack to conceal themselves somewhere. They hadn't entered my room, because Slenderman used that door when he attacked.

Angrily, I shattered the antique lamp right off its little table after I had checked under my bed and found _nothing_. There was no way a man could hide under the bed and there was sure as no way The Rake would be able to fold itself up in the narrow, horizontal space in my closet. There was just _no_ way, but they had managed it, they had…

I stopped my thoughts, and turned to face my open closet door. I had gotten a good enough look at Jack when he was trying to rip me open, and had seen that he had a bit larger body frame then I did. So, hoping this would work, I slid into two of the largest sweat shirts I owned, and headed towards the closet.

My closet was nothing but a couple square feet, if that. No clothes, it was all bare. I barely managed to stuff myself inside. But an idea hit me as I felt the snugness of it…

It would be no problem at all for him to hide here. There was definitely enough room for him, and the knob-less door and squeak-free hinges would allow him total silence.

If I remember correctly—he had been towering over me from exactly behind me, and… If I retraced my footsteps, I would have been laying perpendicular with the bed the night of the attack, which pointed me towards the wall with the closet. It would have been easy for him to sneak up behind me while I was trying to untangle myself.

I smile to myself. Yes! I found where one of my attackers had been hiding!

I wander back out of the closet, making sure to leave it open. I keep the cloths on—for warmth—because the temperature in my room had plummeted. Likely because of the storm, or I hadn't noticed it before. The only other hiding place was under the bed…

Wait… I was attacked by Jack when he sprang from the closet, unheard. I attacked him, and he stumbled away into the darkness. The window had been to my left, and my back was too the bed when I was lacerated by The Rake. So, yes, he must have been under the bed, and I hadn't been able to see him because the blankets pooling around the edges had blocked him from view.

Then Slenderman came in and—

He's standing outside my bedroom window, now—the window which happens to be at the second story, the same window which I had been thrown out of on the night of the attack. His chest and legs were visible. The thin man just watched me through the glass, silvery light outlining the blackness of his silhouette. I can see him through the dim light of my room. I could barely see the paleness of his face, but a swelling anger starts to consume me.

I open my mouth to voice this rage, which his form flicked out of view, faster then his normal snail-ness. I took a step towards the window—as if I had wanted to try and find him again—but was forced to stop when I felt iron tentacles wrap around me, slithering like the serpents they were, tightening enough to cause pain. Tensing, anger chilling down into terror, I am ripped off my feet and suspended in the air for a moment, before being spun around to face the stooped over Slenderman.

His head tilted to the side in either curiosity or insult. I had only a moment to curse at him before I was hurled out of the room.

The bathroom door was parallel to my own bedroom one and I flew straight through the bathroom doorway and into the bathtub. The main impact was made to my back against the clean, white tile. All air was gone as I collapsed into the porcelain bright tub.

The tendrils returned to me a moment later, barely allowing me to regain my breath before it was constricting it out of me again. I hardly managed to spot his shadow pass across the doorway, before I was behind dragged out of the room, as if I was a neglected toy and he was just picking it up and going on his merry way with it.

He didn't waste the time in picking me off the ground, but continued down the squeaking stairs ahead of my pulled form. I felt every sharp edged stair in my ribs, and was unable to slow or stop the progress.

The second I touched the floor beneath the bottom step was when I was thrown _again_. My eyes were closed, my body tensed, so I didn't see my living room and dining room fly by as I sailed through the air. But I did happen to open my eyes as I felt myself slowing down from the initial _throw_—

Just in time to see me heading for a rather large, glass china cabinet.

The _second_ before I reclosed my eyes and prepared myself for the crash, I felt myself have an 'Oh fuck' moment. My brain refused to process, my instincts melted away into fear, and I hoped to god that the shards of glass and china would kill me instantly—a sliced jugular, a pierced heart, _something_ instead of death by Slenderman. I always heard it was very painful, and I already had to go through one of them. I don't need another.

The impact was all shattering glass and cracking wood and a single shriek as a rather large shard of glass forced itself into my thigh.

I practically landed _inside_ the cabinet—feeling glass prickling along your back and sides is _not_ a fun experience. I was faced to face with the old, shiny dishes that the Sewing Club used for fancy dinners and Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Then the entire structure began to tip precariously forward. I tried gripping at the many crushed shelves and hardwood walls, but my arms were covered in glass and wooden splinters. I caught the sight of the tall man's incoming shadow in the dark silver light of the dining room. Panicked, and, with a grimace of pain, I grabbed onto secure holds in the cabinet, and jerked myself backwards, tipping the cabinet forward completely.

My plan worked for the most part as I had expected it to, except for when Slenderman intervened. The jolt would have taken me and the china cabinet down, but the tendrils had appeared just as I was falling, and caught the edges of the cabinet—preventing it from fully tipping over, but leaving me to spill out onto the tan linoleum. My wounded back hit and I stifled a cry as I was rained in shards of glass and chips of china.

He was looking down at me just as Eyeless Jack had done on the night of the attack, looked down on me, who was completely helpless.

My eyes locked with his non-ones—and I could have sworn that I seen a smile on that faceless man, in the shadows—just before he slammed the massive cabinet down on me. The splintered glass and heavy shelves poked holes in my small body, finding new openings, slicing through flesh that was never meant to be damaged or cut. My scream of terror and pain was muffled within the china cabinet of death—my personal tomb.

Just before my own mind quit on me, I felt, more then _heard_ that man's maniacal laughter, and then his slow footsteps walking away. _Slowly_.

I tried speaking, but nothing rose from my lungs but blood.


	8. STILL alive!

CHAPTER EIGHT

_No…_

_Please, can't you just let me die, doctor?_

_Why can't you just let me die…?_

I struggled against the nurses, screamed in anger when they tried to gently help me. I told them that it was a waste of their efforts; _I_ was a waste of their efforts. They would help me, but I would just be attacked again, left for dead again.

How the hell had I got here? Last time I remember I was dying from severe blood loss. Stop helping me! _I don't deserve your help!_

I waited for the first moment I was alone (days later), and I ripped out all my stitching and tore open every wound I could find. I wasn't going to let the thin man come back for me. He would _know_ that I hadn't died. He would come _back_, and there would be even worse ways to die then blood loss.

My plan failed miserably when a nurse walked in. I was forced back into surgery because I had worsened my injuries. No one had sent a cop in to question me yet, because I knew most of them believed what had happened to me had been an accident. Yes, I pulled a five hundred pound china cabinet onto myself because I'm a _five_ year old. Idiots.

But I couldn't blame them. It was the first thing that came to their minds, and it would be the _only_ thing that entered their minds unless I told them differently. And I _would_ tell them differently. If I didn't succeed in killing myself, I would allow myself an institution to deal with these 'Slenderman's going to kill me' phases. And maybe I could live out the rest of my days in fear, trying to convince a psychiatrist that the thin man was real and he didn't just stalk small children.

After my first failed attempt, I tried multiple more times, and was sedated on every attempt. These attempts made their thoughts turn from 'accident' to 'self-inflicted.'

"Tellia," The woman said gently to my half drugged, half restrained form. "Tell me what happened."

Just going into the ninth day was when I opened up and told them.

"Things are out to get me," I say quietly. It will get very awkward telling her about the thin man, but I'm willing to deal with it. I'd have to walk her into that topic instead of simply saying 'Slenderman is out to get me.'

"What things, Tellia?"

I growl at her. "Stop saying my name every time you talk. I'm not some emotionally unstable idiot who doesn't know how to handle the world. I don't need your reassurances. I know what I have to do to survive, and death is the only fuckin' way."

She startles back because of my language, but her expression doesn't waver. The inner-her that only I can see turns twisted, grows darker, like she thinks she can get the truth out of me, despite the resistance.

"If you're so sure of yourself, then tell me who's after you." She's still smiling, but on the inside she's glaring death, like she hates her job because she has to deal with people like _me_.

And that made me angry, because I shouldn't have to be categorized just like that. I doubt many people have been through _my_ situation.

"Can't you just _leave_? I don't want to deal with people like you." She got out of her seat at this demand, and tried to intimidate me with her height, which was quite impressive.

"I don't care if you want to deal with me. You've got to _deal_." I smirk at her, glaring to that inner-self.

"Go. Away."

She stays silent for a few minutes, trying to stare me down. I just continued to smile at her, and, when she knew she wouldn't win, she took a seat. But did something unexpected. Her inner-self faltered, and broke, turning into a younger woman. Sad, miserable.

The woman put her face in her hands, and tried to keep tears away. As I watched her… something clawed at my heart. I regret telling her to leave. I didn't pause to think about others…

_When have I ever done that?_

"Shall I ask what's—"

"_Shut up_!"

I close my mouth to prevent more regrettable words from slipping out.

She continued, "All you are all the same. You're going to spew all of this garbage about how no one understands you, how no one can _help_ you. I've heard it all before, because your kind can't—"

"I'd be willing to talk if you actually _cared_, but, until then, I'm just going to keep trying to die."

I allowed her a few more minutes of shaky-breathed silence before I asked her.

"Ever heard of Slenderman?" She looked back over to me, glaring.

"Oh, don't even get me started with that. My son is obsessed with that game. I can't get him away from it." I nod at this. I had heard about the game, but had only caught glimpses of the newer ones.

I continued, "You do know that the Slenderman character is based off a myth, right? That there might be something similar to it in nature?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Answer my question."

She thought about it, probably thinking back to whatever her son told her about the game. I felt the dread seeping into the room, brought on by this topic. To distract myself, I glanced suspiciously around the room, looking for a clock, before I asked her the time.

"They took the clock out of this room because of your tendencies… And, to answer your question, I thought I remember hearing about something that game was based off. But what does this have to do with _now_?"

I told her the truth; I told her that the thin man was after me.

She stared at me for a moment, before busting up laughing. She stood up, reaching for her cell phone.

"I knew I shouldn't have let my son play that game, and fuck his father for giving it to him." She said dialing a number. "You're experiencing a case of mass pandemonium. People have it when there is a lot of fear because of one subject. We had a case of this with mites. Thought those things were crawling around." Cursing, she shut her phone. "Damn static."

…_Static_..?

I caught the green digital time on the phone of her phone. 7:35 P.M. Not bad. I've been knocked out all day.

Then I noticed the woman heading towards the door, telling me that she'd send a nurse in shortly, and not to try anything funny.

Oh… I would try something all right.

The moment the door shut, I tossed myself out of bed, and almost instantly went to my knees. I had a feeling that the Slenderman already knew that I had survived, and I also had a feeling that he was either outside or inside the hospital, waiting to find me—If he didn't know where I was already…

I took a much needed breath, to prevent a panic attack. There was no reason to freak out when I had no idea what was actually happening. He wouldn't attack a hospital this early anyway, at least not while its still populated with nurses.

Or was he going to try and kill me and make the incident look 'self-inflicted'?

No… not likely.

Gaining my feet, slowly, I crept to the door, and got it open without annoying creaks. The hall was practically empty, despite my condition. Huh. I would have thought the corridors would be crawling with nurses and doctors, ready to intervene if I tried anything. I guess this wasn't the case, or maybe I just caught their guard squad at a bad time. Maybe it was a dinner break, I don't fuckin' know.

I was dressed in something a little better then a hospital gown, but I knew that if I was spotted I would be immediately questioned. And I had no shoes, so it made it just the more obvio—

The lights above me flickered and died, the white hum dying out. I jumped, wanting to instantly crawl back into my room and wait for someone to find me. I could just stay in that room with the door locked—if it locked—and call a nurse.

But I was better then this.

I could walk down a hallway without screaming for my mommy.

I looked up at the dead light, the only one in the hallway, and decided it was just a coincidence, so I walked left.

It wasn't a coincidence, was it?

The hallway was completely empty, it seemed, and I didn't even notice the other patient rooms until I was just walking passed the door. The sedative they gave me kept my mind hazy and inner nerves anxious. I kept expecting to run into a nurse as they exited a room, or for Slendy to open one of those doors.

And I kept looking behind me.

And—if I knew anything about the Slender games—there was a note or page or whatever the hell they were that _said_ don't look back. But I apparently didn't want to heed a video game's warning, because I didn't know if it was _real_ or not. I didn't know the details of the Slenderman lore; I just knew the jist of what he was…

The linoleum under my feet suddenly chilled, like it was constructed of snow and ice. The soles stopped with my next step, preventing me from walking further, just as a dagger of dread cut up my spine. My breath caught, and I closed my eyes against the raging headache that instantly formed, stopping my blurring eyes.

"Fuck," I said to myself, and forced myself to _run_, to run fast and far. My legs could manage it, but I didn't know if my heart could.

I could hear my pulse as I dashed around a corner, catching a black form not too far behind. The lights were flickering, refusing to stay completely lit and white, turning the ivory halls into silver and obsidian death traps. The shadows jumped at me, and I tried not to flinch away from them. I would make it out of this unwounded, this time. I _wouldn't _ be caught, _wouldn't_ be at the thin man's mercy. I—

Sharply turning a corner, I ran through the nearest door, refusing to look at what the door led to, stumbling inside and nearly falling on my face…

It was then that I realized the door hadn't had a door knob, it had just swung open…

The girl's restroom.

Oh my god… _Why_?!

Of all the freaking places to be in, the restroom's had to be the worst. I read it was a proven fact to be the worst place in video games, so much evil happened. Wasn't their a bathroom in the original Slender?

Worse part? There was no exit—because it was a _bathroom_. There was just a high up window that I doubted I could ever possibly reach. The feeling of complete claustrophobia hit me before I could stand again, and it was all I could do to drag myself into a stall and lock the door behind me.

_This was no good_…

"Don't fuckin' come in here," I whispered to myself, as I curled into the corner of the largest stall. This had to be the worst sight. In the fetal position in a hospital bathroom. "Please. You're a dude, there is _no_ reason for you to come in here."

But, alas, he came in anyway. Maybe he gave no damn about where he had to go to find me, because I _highly_ doubted he was a female in disguise…

…

Damn his tallness. He didn't even have to try and open the stall door; he could just glance over it. I violently startle at his non-face, and force myself to look away, even though I want to stare into his non-eyes and open to door for hi—

"You _suck_ at hide and go seek, you know that?" I tell him, surprised at my sudden attempt to be funny. "You never let anyone win. And I _really_ wanted to win, Slenderman."

He doesn't reply, but allowed a tentacle to slip in between the gap beside the door, in order to reach the lock…

"_Please_, don't open that." My voice sounded hollow. I couldn't look at his face. "If you just leave me alone, I'll take care of your job for you. You don't need to come in here and _get me_—" I felt my voice shatter like glass, my mouth quivering. I wasn't afraid of death once it finally happened, I wasn't afraid of myself taking my own life, if was just…

I didn't want the Slenderman in the equation…

The tendrils had reached the lock, but were flickering around it, instead of simply turning it and proceeding to kill me. That made me mad—

"_What the hell do you want_!?" I made myself jump with the echo of my yell. "_There can't possibly be any specific _reason_!_" I racked my mind for something I could have done to piss him off, but came up with nothing. He simply wanted to play with me, I realized. There was no _reason_ behind it. He chose me as his entertainment, and… when he got bored, he…

The turn-lock had began to turn, extremely slowly, but just enough for me to see it. I sprang to my feet, latching one hand onto the top of the door, and the other on the lock covered in black tendrils, and I hung myself from the door when my legs refused to support me due to fear.

I sniffed, and kept my face hidden against the door, knowing he was looking down over the door at me, and I would see his non-face if I ever glanced up. "Please don't open the door." It was only me talking, so I whispered, knowing he would never talk back. "Slenderman, please."

Tentacles wrapped around an ankle, others tried to force my fingers from the lock. Every touch was gentle, and he didn't try and rip my leg off or break any bones. It was almost coaxing me, coaxing me like a scared animal, so I would open the door and allow him to _get me_.

_Tellia_…

I didn't feel the tendril around my throat until I tried to regain my footing. I froze, wondering inwardly when that had gotten there. In a quick panic, I forgot about holding the lock, and I used that hand to try and remove the tentacle.

_Click_.

Then the door was quick to swing itself open, dragging me with it. I threw myself backwards, hoping that I could get away from him fast enough so to not be caught.

I had expected to be thrown again, to be ripped apart or crushed by the Slenderman, because I had somehow managed to survive his personal execution. Why couldn't the people just leave me to die as I was supposed to? It would have been _too_ easy for them. All they had to do was not find me in the glass and wood coffin—

_How _had _they found me anyway…?_

It didn't matter. I would die soon, hopefully for good this time. No more disbelieving awakenings, no more living, no more worry of the Slenderman. I would simply die, and hopefully be spared of my own personal hell.

I closed my eyes.

_Please, _I begged in my mind_, Just let me die._

I felt a shot of dread run through me as I heard the word _No_ run through my head. My eyes opened and I seen the silent thin man towering over me, tendrils still keeping me bound in place.

It was then that I realized the lights inside the bathroom were out, but I could see his form perfectly, every limb, shape and shade could be seen.

A scream echoed from outside the door, and it took me a minute to realize that Slendy had brought friends.

I demanded, "What the hell is going on out there?" I didn't care if the thin man and the rest of his group kill on their own time, but not when I was involved. These creatures were only drawn here because _I_ had been here. Whatever Slenderman had came here for, it had been for _me_. "What are they doing?"

He responded, slowly turning his head to glance back at the door. _Our presence was suspected. We can't have this many witnesses._

"Oh because one or two would be _fine_?" I snap at him, trying to tear myself from his grip, but it was as if the tendrils were fastened to me, apart of me. "Let me go. You can't kill everyone. There are hundreds of people here!"

_You're free to intervene, though I doubt you will want to_.

With that, the tendrils flickered off me, releasing me. I hesitated a moment, and the tall man took my hesitation for doubt—as if I didn't want to try and help those people. For a moment, I seen the inner face smile wickedly down at me, and I made it a point not to look back at her as I ran out the door.

As my eyes tried to adjust to the light the entire place was in chaos. People fled from their rooms, sprinted down the hallways and corridors. Blood splattered the white walls and floor, masses of string covered other parts. Bodies were already piling up, and I wondered how the mass of creatures were going to escape the hospital after drawing this much attention…? Didn't matter now, did it?

I caught the first person as they fled by, and they flailed to try and get away.

"Let me _GO_!" The man shrieked.

"I can _help_ you, just—"

The lights were suddenly lost, and the man screamed in fear. That sound ended up to be the only sound, because all others cut out. Able to see perfectly in the darkness, I grabbed the man's arm and gently led him further down the hall, hopefully away from anything that would want to kill them.

The man was sobbing softly, trembling as he held onto me as if I could protect him. "What is going on here?" His voice was a shaky whisper, and I felt my heart crack. "Why is it so dark?"

"Don't worry. I can get us out." I would save one of them. I would save _him_. Even if I don't manage to even _help_ the others, _I will get this man out_. "Just trust me, and I'll get you out." I seen him nod, and I led him further away from the where the thin man had last been. I kept looking every which way, keeping my eyes open, watching for them.

I would get this man out of here.


	9. Meeting Isaac

Chapter Nine

I hadn't been to this particular hospital before, but I had the vaguest instincts on where to more and head next. My burden clung to me, and would whimper softly, begging me with eyes that I wasn't supposed to see in the dark, telling me that he was scared, terrified, and it only made me wonder just what _had_ he seen. Every step made with him in my party made me feel like I had known him for years, that this wasn't just some man that wasn't right in the head—but a _friend_.

"We'll get out of here. You'll be ok, Isaac." The worst part of it all was…

I had learned his name…

That is the worst possible thing I could have done. I had been foolish enough to _ask_ him for it, and I knew that I would kill myself over anything that might happen to him…

But nothing _would_ happen to him, right? I would protect him. I would save him, if nothing else. If I could save no one else…

The hallways had been piling up with corpses, and I questioned where everything was—surely the creatures were around. I mean, where was Jane and Jeff and BEN. Or had Slenderman only brought along the younger ones, to get in practice. Were their even younger ones?

A flicker of light cut through the darkness down the hall, it seemed to be coming from a doorway. The man got excited, telling me that that was where we needed to go, but he didn't let go of my arm. There were still many intersecting hallways to cross, and many ominously opened doors bathed in blood.

"Are those your friends?" I ask him, and he nods in the darkness, even though I could see him. He catches himself and tells me that he got split up when something happened outside his hospital room. We stopped, waiting for me to agree. I thought about it, thought about the risks for a few moments, before accepting the task of taking him back to his friends.

We moved forward, me unconsciously averting out path around pools of cooling blood. My nerves made me jumpy to every sound and our new destination just seemed to be getting closer and closer to enemy activity. Screams and some kind of maniacal laughter echoed down the corridors, making me cringe and for Isaac to cry out.

Each door way was glanced into and triple checked as we walked by them. We tried to keep to the middle of the hallway, but when corpses and spilled crimson forced us to avert, I was extra cautious.

The intersections were worse. The first one had major activity—a group of _something_'s were attacking an unmoving corpse like starved hyena's, cackling and howling like animals. My first thought was hell hounds, because their glowing eyes, and, as we passed them silently, I just hoped they hadn't noticed us. I also hoped that seeing more then one didn't count as seeing them more then once.

We were nearing the door of the room, which was just after another intersection, when Isaac got excited, mostly out of fear, and made a run for it. I was going to let him go for cover, when I heard a familiarly _cruel_ laugh coming from down one hallway.

I sprang forward, hoping to reach Isaac before she did, and managed to shove him forward, out of her range, just as she attacked. The blade slide into my side to the hilt, and I dragged to down with the impact, skidding out into the center of the intersecting hallways.

Jane was quick to pin me under her, and she clicked her tongue in amusement. "Aren't you playing _heroin_?" She ripped the knife out of me, but I hardly felt it. "Next time don't get in my way." She jumped off me, but Isaac had already been dragged into the room, into safety. She growled murder, and kicked me down again as I tried to crawl to my feet.

"There's no reason for you to be her—"

"Oh, I almost forgot." She pinned me on my stomach with a knee, and yanked my arm out, as if she intended to hack it off. "Slendy wanted me to give you this." With a demented, almost child-like giggle, Jane forced a metal spike through my forearm.

This kind of pain was different. It didn't flare up and ache like hell when the knife got me, or even when all my other injuries occurred. This one seemed to activate each individual pain sensor around the entrance point, which then spread to the sensor's surrounding _them_, and so one and so forth until my entire body erupted with blinding pain. I couldn't breathe because it hurt to intake air.

My mind screamed in agony as my body seized up, violently trembling. Something snapped inside. It wasn't like something had been perfectly fine and had just broke at this moment, but more like something had been bending and wearing away at itself, and the pain was the final breaking point, the last straw.

The metal was removed and the pain disappeared, as did the last of my energy. I collapsed onto the dirtied floor, barely breathing as I heard Jane stand.

"Did you die?" I could hear the smile in her voice. My eyes blinked slowly, and my night vision blurred, warping until it finally faded to black, leaving me blind in the dark. "What a shame. Slenderman isn't going to be happy."

Several pairs of feet approached from another hall. The click of claws from Smile Dog and the nearly silent footsteps of Mr. Widemouth were the only that I recognized. But I could tell there were more in the group. My mind tuned out the sound of distant screaming, to hone in on the humble question that Widemouth had asked. "What was her reaction to the treatment?" I was too weak to move away from the little hand of the creature as he placed it on my forehead.

"We have to get that door open if we want to see if the treatment worked properly." Smile Dog.

Jane took that moment to explain that I had been trying to help one of the people, that I had risked myself for him. She sounded very smug about it, like she thought it was a weakness she was revealing about me to them.

"Keep your voice down, then," Mr. Widemouth growled. "She isn't dead. She can still hear you." Well, no duh. Then the little creature calmed and changed the subject, asking Jane where the boss was. I felt the hand on my wounded arm start to twitch slightly.

"He said he'd wait for us to finish up before he confirmed every death." The female killer replied. "If Jeff and Jack would hurry their asses, then we'll be out of here by sun up."

I felt something seep out of the wound on my arm. It was icy, not blood, and it chilled the skin around the entry point.

There was a sudden crack of wood, not enough to tell if it broke. Jane commented on the strength of the door, and Mr. Widemouth said that it shouldn't take much more.

"Just spill fresh blood and she'll take care of the rest of them."

There was a small voice that nearly cut Widemouth off. It was humble but stern, and I recognized him to be Hoody, the one who tried to save me before.

"The police were called—their surrounding the—"

There was a yell and the sound of a door bursting open, then a cry of Jane as she told the others to look out. Gun fire erupted above me before Jane could take out the shooter.

"Dammit!"

"Get him out of here! He's _human_!"

I hadn't been able to follow the conversation until the scent of blood rose me out of my fatigued paralysis.

"_Get him out_!"

Somehow I knew that whatever Jane had done to me, whatever she had infected me with, was working against them. They had wanted to attack the people inside the room, attack my Isaac, so that I would be drawn to the blood of them, and eventually kill every last human in the hospital—which might have been their plan all along, despite what Slenderman had told me otherwise. They might not have all came here because of too many slip up's, but because they simply wanted to test out whatever they had done to me. Yes. That seemed logical.

I also knew that Hoody's blood had been spilled before any of those in that room had—and Hoody was human, because he was a human worshipper of the thin man.

Not a good combination at the moment, I'd guess…

Despite my earlier exhaustion, I was off the ground in a matter of seconds, moving quickly, moving towards the source of the blood, of the flesh. I felt my own blood fall in great splashes from my open, smiling mouth. There were yells of panic from the creatures and screams of fear from those still trapped in the room, trying to make their way through the doorway and escape down the hall.

I collided with a body as it tried to grab me, but I tackled it down, determined it wasn't my target, and leapt off it—all in a mere moment. I heard snarling from Smile Dog as he tried to order me to stop, but my body wasn't connected to my mind at the moment, and my mind didn't even feel like stopping. It was too greedy for what I would obtain once I finally caught my target.

And I did, because the bullet wound had cut into something important, and he was spewing blood like a fountain. I brought him down, and took no time to sink my teeth into the wound, enjoying the blood curdling scream he cried out as I did so.

Then Slendy was there—ripping me off of his little follower, and I could feel his rage, oh, so much rage. There was the twisting of limbs with those tendrils and the snapping of bones, puncturing of flesh. After he was sure I wouldn't move on my own, he tossed me away as he had done before so many times. I landed, still smiling, on my back. I was happy, because I had caught my prey. I was content, because I had tasted my target, my _first_ target.

I was joyous, that I now had a piece of Hoody's soul.

"Did you kill her?"

It was a lingering question that no one wanted to try and confirm.

Slenderman ignored the question, and I could hear him attending to the wounded Hoody. _Get them for her._

My joy quickly faded because of my need to have more. I felt myself sit up, even though I was technically a pile of body parts. I felt myself rearrange the piles of mass that used to make up my body. Something unseen picked up the pieces of jagged bone and ruptured arteries and wove them back together.

My eye sight returned, and I could see the silhouette of Slenderman, and each individual tendril. I was getting angry _fast_—and was nearly tempted to get an attack on Hoody again—when a new face revealed itself from the doorway of the room full of panicked people.

It was Eyeless Jack, hauling a screaming man out of the room. The blood of his wounds and fear leaked through the air like sweet candy. I felt a smile tugging at my aching face, and in an instant something _unseen_ had yanked the man out of Jack's grasp and dragged him across the floor to where I stood.

The others were arguing to themselves. "Shouldn't we let her rest, to make sure that the treatment has done its job?" Asked Mr. Widemouth.

"You seen her. Tellia doesn't want to rest," Jane grinned cruelly. "She wants to kill them."

"But I don't think—"

_Let her._

I giggle to myself, because I could still hear the tall man's anger. I had finally breached that wicked interior and found another emotion. In celebration, I looked down at my new target, feeling the _unseen_ things twitching, ready to grab and tear at the man.

"_T-Tellia_…"

A whisper, as scared as a child's, barely audible. I look back down at the man near my feet, the man that shivered and trembled, knowing that the _unseen_ things were there, knowing that he was close to death.

He repeated that name again, a pleading beg in a few syllables. My name.

I bit my tongue, adding more blood to my already reddened maw. A brief pain in my chest signaled that something valuable had fractured some more. I had heard that man's voice before, so full of fear. And it wasn't too long ago. How could I have forgotten Isaac and his heart-breaking whimpers?

Isaac. The man I promised to protect and assure the survival of.

_How could I have forgotten him?_

"Tellia!" My head snaps up, to look at Mr. Widemouth. He was glaring at me, but it did nothing because of his little form. "There isn't any pick and choose. Kill them already."

My eyes flicker back down to the cowering man known to me as Isaac—I can see his sparkling eyes in the darkness, and I thought I felt my own eyes burning.

"_Don't think about it_."

I hadn't heard Jane's movement until she was directly behind me, knife poking at the mixed skin and flesh of my back. She told me she knew what I was doing.

"Oh?" My voice sounded different. Like it had been torn apart and layered, making it sound like more then one voice was speaking at once. "What do _you_ know?

I didn't wince as the point of the blade dug into my back, found a gap in the patched up flesh, and slipped inside with a sickening sound. I turned my head to look at her in the dark, and I realized then that she didn't have much sight in this pitch of black. She was the only one, though. Smile dog definitely did—him being a dog and all—, and the rest of them hunted their prey in the dark.

Except maybe not Mr. Widemouth, but who know much about _him_ anyway?

"Slenderman won't let you take him." She said. I smile at her, and I was no slightly taller then her because of my slightly extended—not all the way put together—self.

"_I don't care what he has to say then_."

One of the _unseen_ things whipped around me and took her out, shoving her into the group of creatures and frantic humans. More information entered my mind then I should have known. The twitching _unseen_ things consumed Isaac, dragging him into the shadows, but I knew that he wouldn't be hurt. He was only being protected, now, because I couldn't risk taking him along through the halls of the hospital—in case they tried to kill him.

He would be safe inside my shadow, at least. I just had to avoid sunlight.

With Isaac hidden without a sound of protest from him, I took off in the opposite way from the group, feeling quicker then I had.

They called after me, but I ignored them, refusing even the death-soaked growls of Smile Dog as I escaped. Hopefully Slenderman would be too busy to try and catch me.

Hopefully I would get Isaac out of here alive.


	10. Running for life is good exercise

CHAPTER TEN

I burst through the door of a stairwell, and nearly skidded down the stairs from all the blood. The steps were flooded with corpses, and blood drenched the walls in a mix of letters that I couldn't read. Some kind of black ooze dripped down from the ceiling.

But the lights were on, somehow. They blazed, reflecting and refracting their light over the pools of blood and shiny ooze. I managed to sprint several stories downward before I took a rest, unloading a mass of blackened blood from my stomach almost the moment I stopped. I slumped down next to a wall, and my shadow disappeared for a moment, before a sleeping Isaac appeared not far from me—in the shadow that a mass of bodies created.

I felt my energy drain suddenly, and my anger even seemed to leave me. I struggled to keep myself upright, my eyes open. Were the letters on the walls writing themselves? Did I see a body blink? I had to keep moving.

_Get up!_

I force my eyes open, force myself to stand. The action of standing made me take a few steps too close to Isaac, and my bloodlust nagged at the back of my mind when I looked at Isaac. He wasn't wounded, wasn't injured to the point where blood was running. There was nothing I should be drawn to, but I _still_ have the impulse to attack the innocent man.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" It was an unintelligent question to ask myself. I already knew what was wrong with me. Whatever I had been injected with did something to me. They gave me something that turned me into a monster, something I wasn't.

I had to keep going, I told myself. I had to get Isaac out of here and away from everything that was _supposed_ to stay lurking in only nightmares.

The somethings that refused to be visible took the sleeping man back into the shadows, and I continued to descend. It shouldn't be that far from the bottom, now, at least. A hospital couldn't have _that_ many floors. Right?

Each floor that I walked to had more and more bodies and blood and weird markings on the walls and ceiling. But they were all in different places. The bodies were somehow attached to the ceiling, and blood and ooze lay in still pools on the walls, and the mix up of letters and symbols of all languages covered every stair and floor space.

There was no use trying to decipher whatever the nonsense meant—was it just someone's foolish ramblings, unable to decide which language to write in?

But something pushed me to take a look at the letters, so I glanced at some, some I thought I would be able to understand:

doainrt dkanrZoeiadkodihfasj lsdaohfdih fdoiaA fdoaifndsafd daoisLndrlf

giubkh gfsgfGsgrshtdrh utjrfhyrte fawefOasdf ojtrmspvo faj

I was about to just pass by the letters, having found nothing at first glace that I found any meaning in… Until I saw a capitalized letter, it seemed, of that mass of letters. I had thought for sure that my tired eyes were playing tricks on me when I believed they were all lower case, but I had been right.

I trailed my eyes over each capital letter, in the language I was familiar with, and stopped. Then I reread them, again and again…

I stood up from my crouch, and walked over to another mass of painted letters, just to see if my suspicions were correct; _They were_.

_Zalgo_.

Why did it have to— Why did they—

No matter what group of letters I looked at, they all seemed to shift into those same letters, those same shapes that made up that name. I felt chills, and I ensured Isaac's safety before continuing down the levels, ignoring the levels with walls that seemed to move and shift in texture even as I looked at them.

I'd reached the sub-levels. The basements of the hospital. They were used in old asylum hospitals, where patients could be transported in and out without the normal population seeing them. They weren't all tunnels, though, and some of the modern sections were used for ambulance and staff parking. It should work as an escape if the police are quarantining every off above ground.

It had been extremely silent, and it didn't help that the letters were not around anymore. I was getting used to them, and I wasn't used to this new vulnerable change I felt wandering through dark parking lots, jumping at every noise.

I… _knew_ something was off, but I didn't want to admit it to myself. I just wanted to get my burden out of here and to a safer location.

"_Tellia_…"

I jumped when I heard something whisper my name. I couldn't tell the gender, only knew that it sounded creepy as hell. I glanced around, knowing I wouldn't see anything, but I felt my face lose several shades of color when I seen a tall shadow standing in between two cars.

It wasn't the Slenderman, because the form wasn't as tall, and certainly wasn't as thin. He just looked like a very heighty man, hands held behind his back like some kind of demented butler.

I say demented, because I could see his glowing, bleeding eyes and smile. There were many things about him and this environment that gave me chills of death, and if I wasn't one of those people who know what death felt like, then there was something sincerely wrong here.

"_Tellia_…" Another quick whisper that almost sounded disembodied, like he wasn't standing over there but right behind me. And I wasn't going to look back to see if he was or not, but I wouldn't doubt it if he was, either…

"What do you want?" My voice seemed to lose its force, like a lost sound in the wind.

Everything got eerily quiet, now.

A faraway chuckle that ended in my ear, and the man took a single step closer, taunting me. I averted my eyes from his face like I do with Slenderman, but his gaze seemed to be permanently in the after image—always watching me, making sure I knew he was always watching me.

I glance down and saw my shadow suddenly pool at my feet, even though there was a light off to my far right. I felt the unseen things give up their hold on Isaac, but he remained in the shadows. "_Tellia_…" I take a step back from the sound that was right in front of me, but was forced to step back when I seen my shadow wasn't coming with me. I couldn't just _not_ have a shadow, it would mean that I technically didn't exist. "This one isn't a prime meal," He was talking about Isaac, and I felt my rage bubble just under my torn skin. "We should throw him back so the process of life can start over with this one."

I look up and lock eyes with Zalgo's bleeding ones, growling, "_Don't_ you dare!" I regained control of my shadow—it extended off to my left, the way it was supposed to—, but it started to pool again, becoming a black puddle.

The lights around us, dim as they were they still gave enough light to see, started to flicker. Each flicker brought them closer and closer to absolute darkness, where I would be left with this creature. The letters spawned up again, written in black and red, and I could suddenly understand all the other languages, because they were all saying the same thing: ZALGO. ZALGO. ZALGO!

Images flickered just in front of my eyes, hallucinations that I knew weren't real, but couldn't help watching. Images of places were destroyed, ripped into ruin, animals tortured and massacred. People.

The faces were the worst. The image of horrible screaming mouths, bleeding crimson and obsidian. Their eyes stared into the soul, bleeding their own soul from their sockets. The insanity that should have stayed in the mind, but took tangible form in their every changing world.

I blink, and flinch when I seen my own smiling, bleeding face for a moment before I open my eyes again…

The lights were strong, the letters were gone, and Zalgo had disappeared.


	11. Escape

I must have either fainted, or been knocked unconscious by that creature, because I woke up suddenly, lights glaring into weak eyes, and a sleeping, bleeding Isaac lying next to me.

He didn't seem to feel the gashes running down his face. A hint of blood seeped from the corner of one eye and his mouth. I cursed Zalgo, and cleared away the blood from Isaac's face. The wounds were barely seeping blood, now, and were easy to clean.

I didn't get up. I just sat there, watching him sleep, curled up with his head in my lap. Almost like a child, I thought. He looked so peaceful, and I wondered what he was doing in the hospital, anyway? And what kind of luck did he have to end up here _today_ of all days?

I sigh, and touch the opposite side of his face from where his wounds were. I closed my eyes, and knew instantly why he was in the hospital…

Luck had nothing to do with it. He hadn't just decided to show up today. He had been here for months, fighting stage IV cancer, and more then a couple terminal illnesses. He was a grown man but still had to face the horrors of death with the mind of a _child_!

I open my eyes to look at him, to think back all he's been through today. _No_ _one_ deserved to lay a scratch on him! Not now, _not ever_.

I hug him close, threatening death to the beast in my head—the one that wanted to cause him harm. I, then, carefully placed him within the holds of my shadow, and stood up. I needed to get out of here, didn't care that I now had Zalgo to worry about, didn't care that I was risking my own mortality by going against these creatures.

Ignoring everything else, and hoping that they all would give me a large enough time window to get out of the hospital, I wove my way through the mass of parked cars and immobile ambulances. I began heading up the car ramps, hoping to reach the ground floor before Slenderman or Smile Dog tracked me down.

Basement 3, then B2.

Despite seeing nothing abnormal about the cars or cement walls, I didn't let my guard down. I watched every shadow for what seemed like hours as I walked, making sure they didn't move, and my own shadow angled off as it was supposed to as I walked through lighted sections of the garage. There were no shaky languages sprawled across the walls, no corpses.

There was no sign that human activity had occurred here for a while. No open car doors with any occupants inside. Only sound amongst the light tap of my bare feet against cement. I didn't like this quiet, and I was disturbed by the thought that I might have actually preferred to hear some screaming echoing down here. As company.

I kept moving, ignoring anything that roamed inside my head, focusing on just getting out of here alive.

I had spotted the exit to this place, but I halted my progression. There were flashing lights at the entrance of the ramp, and blockades and armed officers standing at attention. That wasn't why I stopped—actually, all that was the reason I had felt relief, believing I was going to be saved.

It was the blood.

It was everywhere. There was a blazing car that must have swerved away from the entrance opening and plowed into solid cement. Bodies were piled up into a fire pit and they cast off waves of sickly odors of burnt flesh. I spotted several men in haz-mat suits, picking up smoking remains of the corpses; Arms, legs, organs were placed into white containers.

I must have just stood there in the dull glow of light, looking like an idiot, because there was a yell from one of the cops, and suddenly guns were pointed at me.

"Stay where you are!" It was a female voice, but it sounded firm and shaky at the same time. My hands went up on instinct—to show them I was harmless—but the motion nearly threw me off balance. The blood had leaked into the air and it made my head swim. The roasted flesh didn't help the matter and I didn't react quick enough to the cops' second demand to get on the ground.

The bullet tore through my stomach and I instantly doubled over, my own blood sprinkled like a cloud of mist around me. The pain was washed away when a distant ache of hunger slithered up my spine, but my body locked up for a moment, and disabled me from attack.

I heard an order call out. It told them to keep me alive. For some reason they wanted to keep 'this one' alive. But I was done being everyone's little project.

A ring of syringe-wielding people in haz-mat gear approached, and I pretended to be unconscious until one of them had reached down to inject me, before I lashed out at them. A needle went flying and shattered its contents onto the cement. I didn't bother with those in gear, because I knew that I wouldn't be able to tear through it before I was caught.

I simply ran.

The crumpled hospital gown that I wore—stained in blood and shredded from previous attacks (not to mention the pepper of holes in the front from the shotgun blast)—barely managed to keep my torn intestines from pouring out onto the pavement. I tried to keep a hand on them; No need to get myself tangled up in _myself_, now, right? I was actually surprised how far they let me run before they started shooting, I was practically _free_—passed the blockades and the piles of bodies.

The first shot hit me in the side, and didn't tear through me like the last one—because it was a tranquilizer…

A wave of dizziness swarmed my head. _Just breath_, I told myself as I ripped the dart out. _You'll make it out! You and Isaac will make it out_!

As I ran, the pain in my gut returned for a moment, before blinking out of existence, again. I must have listened to myself, after catching a few needed breaths. My shadow danced every which way as I ran, but never fully disappeared. Isaac was still safe.

The uneasiness faded, and I knew I had beaten its effects. I made it by the guards and road blocks, and had turned a sharp left into the grass and shrub section that lined the edges of the building. In the darkness, I would have been able to disappear—since someone had allowed the plant life to become overgrown. I would have just disappeared into the patch of woods that was _right next to_ the hospital. I would have gotten out of here without killing anyone…

But they had to put the bullet through my head…

Actually, a single bullet would have been a nicer way of telling it. But not when shrapnel from a shell came tearing up the side of my head, taking out a side of my skull and ripping out chunks of my brain matter.

The blast took out my left eye, and I had just enough time to see the rain of blood and flesh and clumps of bone before my body stopped working, and collapsed in the grass…

My vision was blackened the moment I hit the ground, and I felt my heart and lungs still.

Everything was silent.

Everything was silent.

Everything was—

I felt myself blink, and all sound instantly returned. I found myself standing in the middle of the sidewalk, a sleeping Isaac in my arms—but also watching myself rip apart the armed S.W.A.T and haz-mat-geared men.

It was…_ weird_. Here I was, watching myself go out of control, holding a near-weightless Isaac, and feeling as like as a fuckin' feather… Could I be _dreaming? _I asked myself as I watched my horribly injured twin sink her teeth into some man's throat. My body wasn't mutilated, it was as it were perfectly healthy—not a wound in sight. There was a _riiiip_ of tearing skin, and a spray of blood painted my twin's already bloodied face in more and more crimson.

I shouldn't be alive right now…

Feeling the body in my arms begin to stir, I turned away from the horrific sight—wanting to spare Isaac from the gore.

But just as I did, I heard the hurried consummation of flesh stop abruptly. I glanced back and seen my twin was standing at her full height now. I felt a chill run down my spine when her single eye caught one of mine. I hoped this was just an out of body experience, and this wasn't a tulpa. Though, I wasn't positive either of us had had enough concentration to create something that shouldn't exist—I still wondered…

I continued walking down the sidewalk, away from the blood, away from hopefully _everything_. I couldn't be here when those creatures got out of the hospital, because I knew for a fact that Slenderman wasn't going to let me go as easily as last time.

"Wait…" I heard my twin say, almost unheard. I looked back and seen my other self walking towards me. I stopped walking, and did as it asked me to, then, I asked what it wanted. "Wait. Wait. Wait." I was about to ask _why_, when it suddenly lunged at me. I flinched, thinking it was going to be my throat it ripped out next, but, when I opened my eyes, I found that I had turned back into my wounded self; Isaac was a curled ball at my feet, whimpering softly.

Something caught my attention in one of the story windows of the hospital.

The Slenderman. He was _watching_ me, as always.

"Isaac," I found myself able to keep looking at the tall man's face for longer then usual. Just a _bit_ longer, and then my vision would start to go fuzzy. I looked away, down at the trembling body. "Get up, please. We're leaving."

The time was 6:02. The sky was starting to illuminate some of the clouds to the east. I didn't want to risk Isaac being in the open as he was outside of my shadow, but the sun would kill that protection soon enough. I wasn't too sure on his physical state, or how much the cancer had affected his body. He seemed to be walking strong enough.

I had managed to get several blocks away from the hospital, and there has been no one outside to question us about our clothing wear, yet. Despite this fact, I knew that they wouldn't let us on a bus wearing hospital gowns—so we had to get something better.

We were currently walking through back alleys behind the main street buildings. And the more I seen, the more I heard, just made me believe that I had succeeded. That I had got Isaac out, that he was _safe_.

And, speaking of Isaac, I felt him tugging at my sleeve, trying to get my attention.

"Hmm?" He wouldn't look at me, but I seen he was crying. "_Isaac_." His legs gave out, and I fell with him, to make sure he didn't hurt himself. "What is it, Isaac?"

"It's my fault… You're hurt…" He voice shattered, and I brought him close, hugging him.

"No, it's _not_ your fault. You didn't—" I took a breath to prevent my voice from cracking. "I'm ok. I _chose_ to protect you from them. If it was anyone's fault, it would be my own."

He looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. "But… You're hurt…"

I smile at him. "I'll get better. Don't worry. I'll get better." His expression falls, but his tear stopped. His face almost looked… _older_, now. And I realized my mistake in an instant.

Isaac might not get better…


	12. Remington House

We entered a small clothing store just as dawn was breaking. The person behind the front desk was missing, and the place was too old to have decent security cameras. Thinking we could grab some cloths and sneak out before anyone noticed, I led Isaac to the back of the store, sneaking through the racks and shelves of cloths like spies.

It reminded me of a distant memory of when my father took me to a Wal-Mart once. I remember staying away from the cart and hiding in one of the circular, metal clothing racks. I had been four or so at the time, and had thought it was fun to hear my father's desperate calls echoed through the stores. I was found hours later when they heard my snoring. I had fallen asleep from boredom.

I remember my father's relief after her found me. He seemed so _happy_.

Now was not one of those happy moments…

We nearly walked right into one of the early morning staff, so we had to turn a sharp corner and toss ourselves into a changing room. The woman knocked on the door and asked how we were doing (she hadn't see us—_thankfully_), and I mumbled out a reply.

As the worker was cleaning or reshelving so close to where we were hiding, I decided to check Isaac for injuries. My senses were practically fried from the wound to my head, so minor blood wounds didn't seem like a problem. I could still sense his uneasiness, could smell it in the air like a dog, but he managed to get out of that hell of a hospital with only a few scrapes—

A second knock made me jump, and gave my stomach a bad turn. I suddenly felt nauseous, like my injury was coming back to me.

"Yes?"

"Oh, Tellia, I knew I'd heard you." I glared at the door, hearing a smirk in those words.

I practically growl at him, "What do you want, Robert?"

Robert was an ex-boyfriend. I forgot that he worked here. One of only a few handful that I actually managed to go anywhere with; When my mother still allowed me out of the house, that was. He wasn't one of the sweeter ones, and I would have preferred that I never heard or seen him ever again.

"Just wanted to know what you were doing here so early. I never saw you as a morning person, Tell." He was finding humor in this situation, and my blood was already boiling. I felt my wounds tingling, and I just hoped I didn't have another animalistic takeover.

Though, I would never feel guilty about hurting Robert, if it came to that…

"Well I've changed, Robert. Now, can you do me a favor?" I didn't like this situation, and I hoped we could just get some new clothing and go before he started asking questions. _What happened to you? Why are you bleeding? Who is that guy? Why are you stealing? You haven't really changed, Tellia._

_ You haven't really changed._

"Ya, sure," His boss must be nearby. He sounded like he was acting better, now. "What do you need?"

I requested that he leave me alone. I peeked under the door to make sure Robert actually left. I made sure I saw no other feet among the racks of clothing and things before I told Isaac to stay put, and slipped out of the changing room.

I snatched some of first things I see off of the clothing racks, and scurried back into the change room. It made me feel like a rat—sneaking around like that. But I couldn't just go about letting everyone see my supposed-to-be-fatal wounds and letting them question me. I just needed to worry about keeping appearances to other people _light_ so we can catch a bus and get the hell out of here. We just needed to get out of here, so Isaac can be—

_What _about_ Isaac?_

My only goal was to keep him safe until I got him out of the danger zone—away from Slenderman and Zalgo and anyone who wanted to kill him. I was never planning on keeping him to myself. _Surely_ he must have a family of his own—someone who cares about him. He must have someone who loves him, somewhere…

I about opened my mouth to question him about it, but remembered that no one knew that Isaac was even in here, so I shut it. I sighed, and stripped out of the tattered hospital gown, aware of where Isaac's eyes were… On the bloody hole in my stomach, was where they were.

After helping him into new clothing—everything looked so large on his narrow frame—, I peeked under the door, again. No one. Robert must have gotten the message and left me alone. Oh well, who knows with him?

I looked over at Isaac, who was fiddling around with a plastic hanger. I caught his eyes when he looked into one of the wall mirrors.

"Do you want me to take you home?" My voice sounded dead, and I hated myself for it. I just didn't want to be alone.

I've always had no one. And I didn't want to face this new _monster_ situation on my own.

_But I should have never have dragged him into this._ Something in my mind hissed._ This had nothing to do with him._

I argued back at myself. _But if I hadn't tried to help him, he would have been dead by now._

The part of my mind that still remained was silent.

He didn't say anything in reply to my question, just sat silently in the corner. Every wall around us, even the door, was covered in the reflective surface of mirrors. I didn't just see a sad looking man, huddling in a corner, but I seen several, dozens, hundreds. They all looked at me through the mirrors, seeming to beg me with his eyes. Beg me to keep him safe. Beg me to help him.

But my eyes caught something else in the mirror Isaac's, something that didn't show up on the original man.

There was a black shroud of fog spiraling up from his chest, like his heart was on fire and it was spewing out smoke from within his ribs. In the mirror versions of him, I could see through his abdomen, to see the organs inside, see the flesh that made up the system of life.

I knew why I was seeing it, but I didn't want to think about it. I could just stare at the patches of lung and heart and stomach that were as black as Slenderman's suit. Those that weren't affected took on a silvery color, and I closed my eyes so I didn't have to look anymore.

But then all I see is Zalgo's _smile_.

"You see it too…" A whisper in the dense silence. "Don't you?"

I nod, and was surprised to find my eyes swelling with tears. I had never cried before—not that I can remember, anyway. There had been no reason before—

Fuck everything that wanted to kill him. Fuck Slenderman, and Zalgo, and _Death_!

I opened my eye and wasn't expecting to see Isaac standing in front of me. I hadn't heard him get up. We locked eyes for a moment—I had to look up at him because of our foot-difference height. Then he did something that I wasn't expecting, at all.

He grinned at me.

Only for a second, though. And I could have sworn that the dark wounds on his body lightened to a grey. They intensified when the expression dropped, and he continued to look sad… "I started telling people I could see the mark of death… But they never believed me." A twitch of a smile returned, but it did nothing for the illness inside this time. "They sent me to that hospital because they thought I was mad… I'm not mad, am I?"

I told him_ no_, he was fine—but he called me a liar. With his eyes.

He turned me toward the closest mirror, and made me look at myself. I flinched at my appearance—I was still mortally wounded, face slick with blood.

"Look," I looked at myself for a few seconds, blinked, and then flicked my eyes to Isaac—who stood behind me—,to his face. The darkness was there too, rotting his mind, infesting one of his eyes. It was the first time that I noticed that his left eye was blind.

He shook his head. "Not at me."

For as long as long as I could remember, I had detested mirrors. It wasn't anything that I had ever seen inside the mirror. I never saw any monsters or horrific faces, but it was the fact that I could see _myself_ behind the glass. That was the reason I was frightened to look, because I didn't want to see _me_, stuck in this life, stuck without anywhere else to go.

Mirrors reminded me that I existed, something I hated since the day my father died.

And here I was, standing in front of something I hated; accompanied by someone I wouldn't dare to admit I loved—_seeing_ that I existed. My broken body looked back at me. Two seeing eyes seen things that shouldn't be seen.

I seen the white mist that poured from my head wound and the hole in my stomach. I would see the tissue rebuilding itself if I watched long enough. I would see myself being healed when I would see Isaac being wounded, dying, right in front of me…

I turned around to face him, and I nearly cried when I seen him smile, again. I dropped my head, closed my eyes. I didn't want to see him, didn't want see…

Forcing a shaky sigh to try and help calm me, I said, quietly, "We need to go."

We managed to slip outside without a single pair of eyes spotting us. I ditched the hospital gowns with some alley trash and I had us moving before the sun had officially risen. I had discovered a thin trail of blood that had followed us into the store, but no one seemed to have noticed it, and I didn't bother with it. We took our leave quietly, and hoped that the sun would keep us protected from any straying creatures that still wanted to track me down. I've never heard of Jeff or Slenderman coming out in the day time, but I presume that if I'm in the right location—say, a dark forest—I could still be attacked.

So, no more relaxing walks in shady woods, then?

This town had been familiar to me—it was the same town that I lived in, went to school in. My house would be located just outside the border line, in one of the older neighborhoods. I thought I knew every store, every corner, every block.

But…

Everything was different, now.

The air felt colder, felt—lonelier. The sun wasn't shining as brightly as I had hoped. The air was icy, and my bare feet were chilling fast.

And it was so _dark_. I knew it was dawn, but the light was still_ there_. I could see the distant leaves of the trees gleaming in dew; see the faded rainbow of colors as they painted the horizon.

It was just so _dark_. Like all the streets held their own depressing gloom, not a car or person in sight, their absence creating their own death fog. Like everything was decaying, fading. The light posts were switching off with the new light, making things duller.

A hungry snarl brought me out of my thoughts, and I looked down at my stomach, where the noise had originated. Was my stomach even still _there_? I could have sworn that it got blasted out of me. Or maybe it was that phantom limb syndrome? It wasn't there, but I still thought I _felt_ it…

Nonetheless, I was starving—don't know when I ate last—and I certainly wasn't going to stalk down a homeless person for my—

I nearly doubled over from the agony of the hunger pangs. When had I eaten last? Really? It had to have been a while, right? I mean, the last time I could remember was when I ingested Hoody's blood—

_Could I get _more_?_

I shook myself from my stupor. There was no way I would get more. I wasn't a killer. Slenderman was just trying to mess with my head. That's what he does, messes with you and makes you do what you don't willingly agree to doing. He drives you mad, like a disease.

_Did I have a disease_?

"Tellia…"

There was my name again. Why did everyone know my name?

"Tellia…?"

I blinked. I noticed I had stopped walking, and was rocking back and forth on my heels. I was freezing. "What is it, Isaac?"

He didn't have to tell me. My layered voice had returned, and I was nearly choked as liters of blood rose up from my throat in endless waves, it seems. My shadow had expanded around me, squirming. Just beneath the surface, things unseen moved like parasites, crawling and worming their way through the black abyss of my shadow. I forced myself to take a step forward, and it lightened, disappearing with the rest of the gloomy air.

"I'm ok. You're ok. We're all ok."

"You need sleep. Yes?"

I looked over at him. "There's no time to sleep."

"Yes, there _is_."

"_No_, there _isn't_."

I had lost that disagreement with him, because he said that he could direct us to a friend who lived in town. I agree, reluctantly, after he said there would be no _no's_ about this situation. I should have been surprised that he was trying to take charge, but I knew that I was in no shape to make any kind of important decisions.

We had cut away from the main street, away from the main bus route lines. I tried to get him to tell me where we were going, but he seemed bent on leading me.

Now, we stood in front of a massive house at the end of a cul-de-sac. I could see the large evergreen trees lining the back of the house and my stomach instantly dropped into uneasiness. Before I could object, Isaac was at the front door, and speaking with an old woman who opened it. At first, I was unnaturally anxious about even walking up the porch steps—I had felt eyes watching me, but I couldn't tell if they were non-eyes or if it was just my own nerves playing tricks with me.

The old woman was stern in her introductions, and set forth a wrinkled hand to great me with once I finally _did_ climb the steps. "I'm Deidre Emmily Ireson; I used to be Mr. Remington's caretaker. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Xianth."

Yes, introductions were formal enough. Remington? Isaac is a Remington? This could be a problem…

"Nice to be here, Mrs. Ireson." I painted on my best smile, but I felt myself falling into a pit of gloom that only I could get out of. This couldn't be good, then.

The Remington family was not a family to be messed with. Known world-wide for their resources and wealth—they could be pretty intimidating when they believed their source of income, or their reputation was at a risk of ruin. There were rumors and gossip about how they took care of even _minor_ threats to either of those things.

But those were only stories.

"Wow," I was forcing myself to act amazed at all the artwork and structure design of the house. "What beautiful furniture." I was acting because I was scared. Sure, there was likely nothing that an old woman could do to me that would compare to what I've already been through, but I was in unknown, enemy territory. I was a peasant amongst royalty. The Remington's were gods.

And Isaac was one of them…

"Come," Mrs. Ireson led us into a large, warm room with a fire place. The walls glowed in comforting light, inviting us in. But I was disconcerted with the lack of familiarity I found myself in.

I nearly startled at a regular, young man dressed in a black suit. He stood against the background and seemed to disappear into the wallpaper.

He addressed me directly, "Mr. Remington tells me that you are in need of recovery sleep and medical attention?" He looked to be around his late-twenties, and cropped, dark facial hair ringed his mouth. His eyes were kind and black.

I stutter out a yes, and reluctantly split from Isaac after I'm told Mrs. Ireson wanted to have some discussion with Isaac. My discomfort must have been clearly noticeable, and I didn't know how I was ever going to sleep with this nervousness.

I watched for a moment as the old woman led Isaac through a doorway, talking merrily. I didn't want to leave him. Honestly, I wanted to drag him out of this house and get as far away from here as I possibly could.

But, instead, I chose to follow this butler through a maze of dark hallways. He could have been leading me to my ultimate doom, but I was obedient to make Isaac happy.

If he believed I was tired, and needed sleep, then I would sleep for a thousand years.

"Misses, we have arrived at your room." I'm drawn out of my daydreams when I see him stop ahead of me. He sweeps a gloved hand towards an open doorway that leads into a master bedroom. Dumbfounded, I hesitantly enter, eyes going immediately to the massive bed at the center back wall of the room. "I'm sure you'll find everything to your liking, Madam."

I look back at the butler and threw him a strange look. He smiled pleasantly.

"Madam?" I knew I shouldn't question the butler and his ways, but I was curious. "I bleed on your floors and you call me Madam? How does _that_ work?"

He steps into the room, never losing that pleasant expression, and shuts the door. "I really don't get many visitors, so I tend to treat them special. Lady Ireson doesn't prefer my regular company, so I have to entertain myself _by_ myself, usually."

Of course the old woman wouldn't enjoy your "company", because she was like eighty. This took a darker turn. I knew what his meaning of "company" entitled. And he knew that I knew. But did he know that I knew that he knew that I knew? Couldn't be sure, now. I was never good at reading body language.

I can't believe the words that exited my mouth, "You must get very—_lonely_. How often do you entertain yourself?" Wow. Who the hell put me in charge of my voice? I certainly wasn't using it properly.

"Not enough." He had moved closer. His smile gone. His voice lustful. "Would you mind assisting?"

My inner virgin emerged, and I looked away from his hungry eyes. "No," I cursed myself—not knowing if I had wanted to stop it—and caught his retreating form. "Just wait," I told him and he stopped halfway through the narrow opening of the door, but didn't glance back. "If I can stay here for a few nights, I'll allow you to come back."

We waited for something, both standing still. Then, slowly, I approached him, and he peered around the edge of the door at me. I no not hesitate when I touch his arm, and I felt two kinds of hunger course through me.

"You are a guest in this house, so I shouldn't burden you with my needs, Madam."

"Well," I look him in the eye. "I'm a bit empty at the moment, and could do with a burden to keep me company."

He smiles at me—different from his butler smile. That smile meant he would be planning something, but didn't reveal anything to the person receiving the expression.

Good thing I wasn't a normal person.

I smile back, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Ok," He grabs something from a table in the hallway, "Here, take this, then." He handed me a black and white flower—almost like a rose, but almost like a tulip. "Keep that with you to ensure my return tonight, Madam."

The petals shone in the light and they smelled like lilacs. What a peculiar flower.

"I'll be here,"

Unless something happens…


	13. Safety?

I looked like hell. That is the first thought that entered my mind as I stared at myself in the massive bathroom mirror. The gaping wound in my head had to have been completely noticeable for _anyone_ looking directly at me—and both Mrs. Ireson and her butler both looked me straight in the face when they were addressing me.

The left side of my head (what was left of it) was darkened by blood-caked hair that had fallen over the wound from my other side. I guess my messy hair could have covered up the missing chunk of my skull, but I doubted it. It still looked concave to seem natural. Oh, why did I have to go and get part of my head shot off? I let my head fall in defeat, almost comically…

Better question: How in all bloody hell was I still alive?

I glance back up at the mirror, and decided to do some adventuring. I was never good at any science, so biology and anatomy weren't my best classes in school, but I knew the basic form, and I was positive most people weren't supposed to still be moving when half their brain gone. Well, anyway.

That was my guess, anyway.

A nice shower calmed most of my nerves, and simple soap cleaned away the blood. I watched the red liquid swirl down the drain, enjoying the heat of the water, staying until it ran cold.

Standing in front of the mirror of the little private bathroom, in nothing but a thin towel—I didn't ask permission to use it, but I wasn't going to sleep on white sheets covered in bleeding injuries—I found myself learning newer and newer things about my self-that-was-supposed-to-be-dead. First of all, I could remove the entire half of my brain and still be able to have complete control over sensory nerves and movement. That wasn't something you saw everyday, unless you're watching one of those miracle E.R. shows.

I didn't know anywhere else to put the chuck of grey matter—so it's sitting in the sink. I wasn't going to put it back in, but I still filled the sink up with water—I pretended it was just a big, silver goldfish that was living in the bathroom!

Secondly, the wound that Jane gave me, the one I believe that started all this mutated oddness about my body, was as bad as I had thought it to be. It didn't hurt, not after it was received, but the damage to the skin and muscle looked severe. I'm no doctor, but I'm _pretty_ sure light isn't supposed to be seeable from between the two forearm bones…

There was no trace of whatever she impaled me with, so I had no clear idea as to what exactly _it was_. I'd have to remember to ask her next time I saw her.

And, thirdly (and this isn't really to do with my corporeal form, either)…

I can sense the presences of ever being in this mansion. Every last one of them could be seen.

Staring at the wall allowed me to see though the walls of several rooms. Isaac and Mrs. Ireson and that butler chuckled at some unheard thing. If I looked up, I could see a few blue jays perched up on the roof. And, if I looked below me, to the floor, I could count the hundreds of burrowed beetles and spiders that were preparing their long winter hibernation. Even my own skin was pulsating with the millions of creatures—the tiny insects or whatever they were eating my skin. My skin looked fuzzy, looked grey, with continuous patterns of red and orange splotches…

I ran my hand over my bare forearm, and it left behind a trail of deep red. I stared at it for a while, and watched as the grey slowly covered up the red.

I had just likely killed billions of those little creatures…

I collapse to the floor, legs unable to find enough strength to keep me standing. "What—"Something was very, very _wrong_—and I wasn't just talking about killing insects. "What in all hell—is—"

The bathroom lights flickered, and I tensed, but they remained on. I didn't want to get up; I could see him through the walls, standing with a silver outline against the yellow paint of the bathroom décor. The edges of his suit stood out to me more, and, as I stared at them, I realized that he had been coming closer.

He had just called out an attack on a _hospital_, full of people that likely wouldn't have ever known that he existed, full of people that were likely corpses lying in those halls. He would give no hesitation to enter this house, and would give no hesitation to massacre Isaac as he had done to so many others.

He was slowly getting closer, ever time I blinked, slipping just a bit closer—removing the number of walls that separated us…

"Stay the hell away." My words sounded like the last plea from the dying. I cleared my throat, and found my footing. "Stay the fuck away—Go back to your woods!"

But the Slenderman still approached, still continued to blink out of existence, only to appear much closer. The lights shivered again, something was disrupting their droning _hum_.

I must have blinked the moment he decided to teleport into the bathroom, because he was suddenly _there_, wearing a height of eight feet that he managed to pull off in the tall room. I stood my ground, but still wanted to back up a step or two. I was barely 10 feet _from_ him, and any one of those tentacles could reach out and wrap around my neck—

"What do you want, Slenderman?" I wasn't _that_ terrified of him. I still wouldn't look at him directly in the face, so I occupied myself with gazing at a picture beside him, but still kept him in full view. "It can't be anything important. What if I was showering?"

My questions left unanswered, and silence consumed us for a good minute. It wasn't awkward, really, because there was definite tension in the room. I was vaguely wondering if he was still angry about me attacking his little proxy—when I seen one of those black tendrils lash out at my face!

I throw up my hands to protect myself and my vision was blocked for a moment. Something wrapped itself around one of my wrists and yanked me towards it. That was new, because, usually, he was hurling me across the room.

He gave me no way of landing besides to fall into him, and I felt myself tense as solid contact was made, breathe being forced from lungs, ribs still cracked and sore from being messed with. Like I had hit the firmness of an aged, unmoving tree trunk. I would have laughed at how close to a description that had been to Slenderman, but I was still trying to grab back my much needed air.

"Fuckin'—Basterd." My hands found his suit-clad stomach, narrow and strong. I glared jealously at the black material (because I had, once again, lost my towel), at its perfectness, perfectly conscious that the tentacles were unfurling around me, clouding the moist air with dark branches, casting twitching shadows around the tiled floor. "If you wanted a hug you should have just asked for one…"

I was NOT going to hug him—that may result in instant death—but I DID continue to look at the suit he wore. It was smooth, almost soft, to the touch, and I nearly let myself be curious as to what lay _under_ it. But those were bad thoughts. Most sane people to not mix those kinds of bad thoughts with the Slenderman.

_Well I'm not all that sane…_

_ Shut the HELL up!_ I screamed inwardly at myself. That was no way to depict the Slenderman (please, god, don't tell me that the rumors about Slendy rape are true!) _And damn you, body, for being a raging hormone factory. I don't need this_!

I felt my face heat up, and I tilted my head towards the ground in embarrassment, so he wouldn't get any ideas.

_Please don't tell me he could read my mind…_

A cold tendril crawled across my shoulder, and I heard a quiet, low-voiced chuckle in my head, and it told me everything…

"Perv," Another laugh. Was this a good sign? I tense slightly when the tendril on my shoulder crawls around my neck—slowly. Oh so slowly. I sighed and played with the edge of his suit jacket, almost nervously. "Should I be scared of you?"

I flinch when I see one of his hands move toward my face. I don't retreat away from it, just hope and pray it doesn't want to rip my eyes out.

_Everyone should fear me_.

His hand burns like ice. I grab his wrist but a tendril pulls my hand away. It slowly tilts my head upward, and I finally give in and look at him, up at him, actually.

"That—" My voice cracks slightly when a wave of intimidation rolls through me. "That didn't answer my question. And I don't like creeps who dance their way around my questions."

I forced his hand away this time, and had tried to move away from him—only to find that my legs weren't moving, and my back felt numb. I glanced behind me, to where the tendrils had been swarming in the air.

"What," I say when I see that the tips of every tentacle had just barely punctured the skin all over my back. They weren't deep enough to draw blood, almost like pin pricks. A brief question formed, something about Slenderman being poisonous, but it fled when I looked back at the tall man's face. "Are you doing?"

My question wasn't answered with words, of course, but with something different all together. There were no dark words spoken in my head, there were no laughs.

There were just the screams coming from all throughout the house. Some weren't recognizable—like they were distorted, or inhuman—, but there were ones that were familiar, cries of terror that shouldn't have been able to pierce the old walls. I watched the flickering silver outlines of several forms running beyond the walls of this room. It took a moment to sink in, but…

"Damn. You, Slenderman."

_He has to die, Tellia._

The tall man had been the distraction.

-o-o-

-o-Author's note-o-

-Lol-

Decided to start adding one of these with every chapter/story. I don't just want to be in the background~ :D

Anyway... this one seemed shorter then those before it. I apoligize-little inspiration (well, enough to actually get something done, at least), and exhaustion. Need a coffee-doubt I'll find a decent one at this time of night, though :(

Promise the next will be larger in size. Good bye, and have a nice day! :D


	14. Dreaming

My voice crumbled, "No—" I couldn't even managed a single syllable correctly. Finally, the tears ran. I tried to tell the tall man that Isaac didn't have to die…

But I couldn't say a word.

The tendrils had sunken deeper into flesh, and I soundlessly felt the blood start to stream down my back. I clutched weakly at the fabric of the Slenderman's suit, until he drew us apart. I made one last, desperate grab for him—like a child reaching to grab its mother's hand—, but he was already too far away.

"He doesn't have to—"

_Yes, he does._

Jeff and Jack appeared in the doorway, a struggling, bleeding Isaac held between them. The smiling killer only grinned at me when he seen my terror, my tears, my desperation.

"Can we gut him, now?" Jeff almost sounded impatient. Jack remained silent.

The Slenderman gave the order, and the grinning madman gave his famous line. Jeff the Killer then proceeded to split the man I had risked my life to protect, right down the middle. The black, rotting patches on Isaac's organs, the ones that only_ I_ could see, burst, and they spilled out vile, cancerous ooze from the massive laceration.

I swipe at Jeff, trying to seize the knife as he prepared to cut his victim's throat. I was yanked to a halt by the tendrils connected to my back, like a dog on a chain, and lost my balance on the damp, slick floor.

I scream in horror when Isaac's corpse fell before me. I reached for him, but we seemed to drift apart. I struggled, trying to find purchase on the smooth floor, to try and crawl myself, _drag_ myself, towards the body. The tentacles slid further inside, pushing back against delicate lungs, slipping passed fractured ribs.

The body dissolved into a mass of trembling, black and red numbers. Isaac's bleeding eyes were the last thing I saw of him before I found myself looking up at the abyss eyes of Jack. My screams had fallen silent, and all I could hear was my uneven breaths as I tried to gain enough air to breathe.

A whisper from right behind me.

"Go to sleep!"

I had expected Jeff to come attacking with his knife, but I was surprised to be looking down at the tall man's deadly tendrils piercing my chest. I thought I felt a faint beat of my heart—maybe the last one—before I seen the barely pulsing organ be ripped out of one of the many gaping holes.

_Beat—Beat_

_ Good-bye_

The lights shattered, and the sound of overwhelming static filled my mind as I looked into the non-face, saw the non-eyes…

_Good night_…

Isaac's unmoving, smiling body hung down from the ceiling, watching me. The tentacles slowly coiled around me, and suddenly the body was looking down at me, unseeing eyes staring me down.

"Isaac," My voice gives up on me once more as I managed a pained whimper.

"Don't worry, love," Not Isaac's voice. Zalgo's. "You're already dead—"

"Tellia!"

I woke up to Isaac's worried face looking down at me. My eyes shut against the bright light of the bedroom, hating myself as my body refused to move over its exhaustion. What was that? A dream? Where the hell was I?

Bedroom. I was in the bedroom, laying on the master bed that had been given to me with the room for sleeping and recovery purposes. I was clothed. But what was all that with Slenderman and them?

"It's ok," I tried to sound reassuring, so he wouldn't make me care for him. I don't think I could take much more of his sad whimpers. "Isaac?"

"We shouldn't have come here…" He stroked my hair, and pulled me onto his lap. I tried to object, but he made a sound that stopped my protest. "We shouldn't be here…"

"_Why_? Why shouldn't we be here? What's wrong with _here_?"

Aside the fact that this mansion should never be tread by people like me? Aside from the fact that I had felt a severe disconcerting sense that I didn't feel any safer _here_ then I did in the woods where I knew Slenderman lurked, or the hospital basement where Zalgo dwelled?

The Remington's were not known for their hospitality and would likely feed me to a pack of wild dogs before they let me through their front door. Even though the main family lines (was Isaac considered a main line?) were not present, I still felt their lingering essence imbedded in the walls and halls of the mansion.

What the hell was I doing here? In the Remington's summer mansion? With one of the Remington children?

Something clicked in my half-mind, "Why would you want to leave, Isaac? This is your home, ya?" He didn't reply, so I turned myself around to face him, but he wouldn't look at me. "Isaac," I gently turn his head until I met his eyes. "Why don't you like it here?"

As answer, he constricted me in an embrace, and he let out a quiet sob. "Nothing good is here. Nothing good." I asked him why, and he said, lowly, sternly, like he feared he would be overheard, but was confident in what he said, as well, "Everything's evil here."

That had to be the coldest thing I had heard him say. _Everything's evil here_, my dark mind whispered back at me. I hated the sound of that, and I hated any meaning that could be paired with those words…

"When are the monsters coming to get me?" I was almost too speechless to speak as I tried to catch his wandering eyes move away from my shocked face. "I'm… the reason they keep hurting you, right?"

Suddenly angry at him, I grabbed his head and _made_ him look at me. "They won't get you, you know that? They will never _touch _you!" I lowered my voice, almost matching his previous tone. Both of our single, working eyes locked onto the other—and I seen a humble intensity that I was starting to find familiar. I run a few shaky fingertips over his bare scalp. He returned the smile and for a single moment, I seen bits of his obsidian-colored insides lighten a bit. "Don't worry about them, love. Please?"

It was still daylight outside—still a few hours before the butler showed up at my room—so I convinced Isaac to get some rest. I tucked him into the soft bed, making sure he was comfortable.

_Everything's evil here_…

I shut every set of drapes as the sun turned the streets and yards into blackened masses. The colors still glowed in the sky, but I didn't trust the dark anymore.

_Everything's evil here_…

The pacing began right after I confirmed that the sick man was asleep. Pure thought-consuming, mental-rant-inducing pacing was what took over my exhaustion. I inquired upon my next move, about Isaac. I couldn't just _leave _him here.

_Everything's evil here_…

What had he meant by that? Well, it's not like I could just wake him up and ask him. I _want_ to, I want to question him about all he knows—every little secret that I had been exposed to since we got out of the hospital.

But I _couldn't._

I sighed, and stopped my pacing. I glance over at a digital clock beside the bed, and see that the time had flew by several hours without me realizing it.

I sighed again in frustration, and suddenly felt hungry. A snarling roar erupted from the remnants that were my stomach right after that thought formed. I'm sure if I went to the kitchen I could find something—but that would mean wandering through this uneasy household. Besides, I'd likely get caught by the butler, and he'd likely only give me what I needed after I gave him what _he_ needed, and I suddenly didn't feel like giving that too him, despite my previous acts.

Sighing again for what felt like the hundredth time, I turned around, towards the door, and was startled to see the butler standing not five feet from me.

He smiled; amused that he had managed to scare me.

"_Jumpy_, are we?" He took an extra step towards me, trying to intimidate me.

"You could say that again," I smiled back at him, and, now, he was smirking at me. "What?"

"Hungry?" I blush at the question, than glare at him, only causing him to laugh. "Of course you are. After all you've been through; I wouldn't doubt that you could eat just about anything." I caught his little joke. My glare intensified as he continued to chuckle.

"I'm a bit tired at the moment." I fake a yawn, stretching my tired arms above my head. "Maybe in the morning…?"

I wasn't expecting him to lunge at me, so I was left completely exposed.

"What are you—?" A fist slammed into my gut and all air was lost. He growled at me to be quiet as he dragged me through the bedroom door, out into the hall. I gasped for air, struggling to get out of the man's grip. A gloved hand pressed against my mouth as he shut the bedroom door, leaving my sleeping Isaac in there, alone in the dark.

Dragging me down the hall took almost no effort, because he practically carried me. I fought, kicking, flailing. To no avail did his grip slip or loosen. At the end of the hall, we took a turn and I was almost instantly grabbed by other hands.

I caught the image of a bald head before a blindfold was thrown around my head, cutting off my vision. Another strip of cloth was tied over my mouth, muffling my growls of protest. And I was carried away, with the butler's sarcastic good-bye. I could hear his hard-soled shoes walking back down the hall.

The cluttered, uneven footfall and words of several people, and my own pathetic cries, were the only sound in the hall. They told me to shut my mouth or they'd cut my tongue out as they bound my arms behind me.

"This won't hurt _that_ much," Said one of them before something solid struck me in the head. My already blackened vision flashed white for a moment before I lost all feeling and consciousness.

_There was a room in front of me. I knew there were corners, but they were drowned in dark blackness. A light glowed slightly in the center of the room, which made the shape of the room look almost circular, almost—spherical._

_ At the center of the room, a tall, thin figure stood, still. The coil of snake-like tendrils were suspended motionless throughout the light of the room._

_ I took an uneasy step back. I didn't like dreams involving Slenderman, because I knew how they usually ended. I looked around the room for any of the other creatures, but, somehow, as if knowing there wasn't anyone else here, I saw no one._

_ I waited, waited for him to approach me, waited to be ripped apart as I had before._

_ But, I somehow also knew that this wasn't actually the Slenderman. The creature standing in front of me was just a model, a copy. Not really alive, just a mold created for another use entirely…_

I was woken up by a strike to the face. I fought to breathe through the cloth around my face, and panicked for a moment when my eyes wouldn't open.

I could feel myself sitting in a chair, could hear the squeaks of the metal as I shifted in it. I was freezing, and my shoulders and back ached from the strain on them. How long was I—

I let out a cry when a second attack to my face was given. I knew the person attacking me was male, and he never cared to treat his wife any better then he was treating _me,_ now. But my cries were quieter then the pain-infused ones from his wife…

"Stay awake, now." Another man—off to my left, said in a slick, even voice. "You don't want to miss any of this."

The cloth covering my mouth was ripped away, practically giving me whiplash. I disliked the situation already, arms and legs locked against the legs and armrests of the metal chair with leather straps.

"What don't you want me to miss?" I braced myself for another hit when it came. I felt blood running, and I hung my head in pain. The brute ordered me not to say anything unless I was specifically asked, not to make them mad, yada yada yada.

A voice whispered into my ear, an ominous thing. I couldn't hear what was being said. It had come from something else, something besides these kidnappers. I know that, because—they were no Slenderman, or Zalgo. They didn't create fear in me. They weren't something to fear.

_Everyone should fear me_. I remember the dream Slenderman saying that to me. That had been true, but, aside from the threats to Isaac, I didn't fear him. I wonder why that was…?

"Let's just get right into it, shall we?" The smooth talking man was now standing in front of me. If I was able to see, I would be staring at his shoes.

A hand forces my head up, up against the tall back of the chair. The hand pressed up against my bottom jaw, and I caught my tongue on one of my canine teeth. The man mistook my attempt to prevent myself from biting my tongue off as a last desperate struggle.

He laughed.

"You can start by telling me how you managed to end up with my brother Isaac—the only two survivors of this horrific terrorist attack?" I was silent, wondering what I would say, because the grip on my jaw was preventing me from opening my mouth to speak. "You'd have to have been smart to have gotten out of there without tripping any of the traps. _Too_ smart, actually."

The hand let go, and I didn't even try and open my mouth. The smooth talking man, Isaac's brother, hit me this time. It felt lighter—an untrained hand.

"You thought you could just prance out of there like a pretty little girl and be the hero?" The words were almost cruel. "Things don't work that way. You expected to get all the praise as the protagonist of that little incident, didn't you?"

"It wasn't terrorists," I hesitated for a moment, expecting to be hit. I used that second to spit blood at my feet, hoping to get some on the brother's shoes. "Not the _normal _ones, anyway…"

I'm guessing they wouldn't tolerate me trying to walk them into the subject of the Slenderman. And they likely wouldn't believe the story of the monsters in the hospital.

I could hear the smile in the brute's voice as he stalked over, and grabbed a nice fist-full of my hair.

"How else do you explain the bombs?"

"I wasn't there for that. All I seen was the bloodshed. Did they check the bodies?" I should have known they wouldn't deal with my questions. The next attack nearly made me lose consciousness.

And, as I balanced myself at the edge of unconsciousness, that room returned.

_I was standing in front of the Slenderman figure. The model was never going to move, so I gained some courage and reached out to touch the back of one of the hands held to his side. It was cold—as they had been in my dream. The suit jacket was as soft as I remembered it, and able to be moved._

Isaac's brother was losing the amusement in his voice. "Tell us where they went. Was it my brother they were after?"

"What makes you think that I'm not a victim in this? That I just _helped _someone?"

Hit.

_I parted the sides of the jacket, careful not to damage the buttons as I went. Underneath was the white button-down shirt and red tie. The non-face of the Slenderman looked blankly over my head at something. It didn't obtain life so it wasn't going to move any time soon. Or, I _hoped_ not, anyway. I felt deathly curious at the moment—like the thought and act of undressing the infamous Slenderman was a walk in the park._

_I ignored what was happening outside of my mind, ignored Isaac's brother's next question, and continued to be my curious self. Underneath the black suit jacket, there was the white shirt and red tie. Underneath the white shirt and red tie, there was sleek, porcelain skin. _

_ The egg-shell white flesh held a sense of age, though each muscle was constructed into something almost perfect. I trailed a line of a rib, ignoring the more obvious mark that was revealed with his exposed body. I purposely refused to lay my eyes on it, but instead found myself running my fingers over the curves of his throat and indentations of his collarbone._

_ When my eyes settled on the scarred Operator symbol carved into his chest, I hesitated before reaching out to touch it—_

"I asked who you were employed to!"

My blindfold had been removed, and the brute had taken over for the brother. My face wouldn't be in good shape after they were finished with me. My blood didn't have a scent as it pooled, and my senses were high, waiting for the air to fill with someone else's.

I smiled at them, knowing I was about to win.

"I am a sixteen year old girl, with no prior employment experience!" I yelled at the brute, before looking at the Remington. "I saved your brother, why the hell am I here?"

_The scars were hot, like molten steel ran just beneath the surface. I pulled away, and patiently proceeded to fix the clothing that my curious hands had disrupted. The man was quite tall, but I managed to make his appearance in suit and tie inmistakable to the appearance he was originally seen in._

_ As I stepped back to take a look at the mold of the killer, my eyes lingered to the second reason this model was placed here, here in the room of my head. _

_ The Slenderman had simple features and humble killing techniques. The first ones used would be the ability to disrupt normal cerebral signals that would keep a person _calm_ for example. It gives them acute symptoms of schizophrenia, and that only spawns and reproduces fear at the sight of the faceless man. This ability is also able to disturb electronic devices, and give victims vivid illusions involving static and other such occurrences. Teleportation is also part of this disruption, though it is a true delusion._

_ The second technique to bring death to prey is the many tendrils that sprout from his back. They would be the easiest to manipulate in any given situation, because most people are likely to still attack and flail when an illusion is drawn. Both would be good—if I could only learn how to use step one…_

_ I could sense my interrogators were growing more and more impatient. I would deal with those intolerants in a moment. But _first_…_

_ I walk to the creature's side, to the closest tendril that seemed low enough for me to reach. It stayed there, frozen in the air, as if it had been constructed from durable material and hung with strings. But I was interrupted before I could properly inspect one._

I had finally realized that I wasn't just sitting in a normal chair. I understood _that_ when the brute walked over to a machine against the wall to the right. There was a bundle of switches and dials, as well as a lever.

A few other brutes—some that had lingered in the background out of my line of sight and hearing range—showed themselves as they forced a black bag over my head, and tightened it to near suffocating restrictions. I knew what they were planning, and needed to only concentrate in order to have them fail.

The problem was the brother. He kept rambling and yelling, shouting at me, demanding that I reveal the location that my bosses were. I knew by now that he didn't intent for me to answer him, and I knew that he wasn't going to be letting me go.

I closed my eyes under the cover of the bag, but willed myself to flinch and cry out with every hit, even though my mind would be elsewhere…

I used the time that they used attaching the head piece to slip deeper into that line of almost-unconsciousness.

_The tendril was cold, and it coiled lightly around my forearm as my fingers touched it. The model—though I said it had no life inside of it—moved slowly, crouching down so that the top of his head was just under my height. The rest of the tendrils surrounded me, and I knew it wasn't that long before I have fatal bolts of electricity running through my wounded head. _

_ A small tug was all it took to detach it from the creatures back. I recoiled as an inhuman shriek erupted from the model—the normally distorted voice of Slenderman was corrupted into something terrifying._

_ The tendril squirmed and slithered, unseen barbs on its surface attached itself to my arm and split apart, separating into several other tentacles which then proceeded to burrow beneath the wounded skin of my forearm. Blood welled from the intrusions and dripped onto the floor. Despite this all being in my mind, I felt the pain burning in my arm in reality as the tendrils split apart much further, crawling through veins, climbing through capillaries._

_ My arm fell to my side as my last movement when I feel one of them reach the main arteries. The model of the Slenderman had collapsed into ashes, leaving uneven lines of blackness on the floor to represent the tendrils. Some of the cinders fell into my hair, and melted like ice as I felt the vine-like appendage—so small it was hardly noticed, but, somehow, I felt it—make its way down into my chest, towards its destination, towards the core that it needed to reach before it was replicated…_

Outside of my mind, barely audible over the yelling in my face—I heard others tell the brother that the controls were operational, and that they could begin…

I heard the muffled footsteps of the brother taking a few steps back, and him mumble something inaudible to my—

_ A pain—that could have been my heart tearing open—forced me to my knees, hand clutching my chest. A small amount of electricity sparked in the walls of this spherical room, giving me warning that I was seconds away from being fried from the inside. The pain intensified as I closed my eyes, shutting out and room and returning to actuality._

When I opened them again, I could see the glowing silver outlines of those in the room. I felt my hunger spawn into raw, concealed anger, and felt my back start to ache in pain—something was crawling under the skin. I was waiting for them to pull the switch.

"Wait a moment, please,"

My blinded eyes turned towards the sound of the female voice, standing over in an open doorway. She was a Remington—Isaac's mother…

The brother of Isaac bowed in her presence, apologizing because he hadn't noticed her sooner. "What do I have the pleasure for this meeting, Mother?"

The greyed woman cut him off rudely, acting all huff about it. She asked if I would be staying with them for dinner. The brother—his voice betrayed his once calm composure—replied in disgust, for he had clearly not been expecting the question.

"Of _course_ not,"

"Then," She stopped just next to the chair, "Why would you waste such resources?"

At last, I felt the tendrils slice through the skin of my back. They were being formed by complete will and nonexistent material. There was no pain, just a… tingling chill. It cooled the fevered muscle and would have relaxed me completely had I not been about to die.

I could sense the woman's plan. She wanted me dead, so she would get her hands dirty and slit my throat right now.

I blink to myself (though no one else can see my eyes, or the tentacles spawning from my back), when I hear the woman standing directly in front of me.

"Show me her face. _Now." _My attackers—except the brother—rushed to remove the head piece and black bag from my head, and I was soon sitting, face to face, with a vile-looking smirked to herself when she seen my bloodied, broken face. I spotted the knife in her hand from my peripheral vision, but kept my eyes on her face.

She smiled a pseudo smile. "I thank you for returning my son to me. I have missed him so…" Her words were false, and my rage raised a few more degrees when I began to question why any mother would talk about her son like that. "Your services are no longer needed, Miss Xianth."

She raised the knife to inspect that it had a razor edge, but I smiled at her, much too happy, and she just had. To question. _Why_.

"Oh," The tendrils were concealed between my back and the chair, as well as the poor lighting of the room. "You don't get to keep him, Mrs. Remington." I let out a laugh. "I'll be taking him when I make my leave."

She looked down on me—the room was absolutely silent.

"_We_ will be the ones to send him on his way. _You_ will be leaving _now_." So, she was going to kill her own son after she was through with me?

_How interesting_, Something, deep in the recesses of my head, purred.

The knife was placed at my throat, and I felt the briefest sharpness, before the tendrils did as I asked. Practice would make perfect, so, why not start immediately?

The black thread was quick when it curled over my shoulder and snatched the knife away from the older woman. It was yanked from her hand and whipped across the room before she could react. Imbedded into the throat of the first brute was where the dagger went, and the restraints on my arms were already opened, due to the new ability working directly from my train of thought.

"Why should _you_ get to have him?" A strength test resulted in the prying of one of the chair arms. It disengaged from the rest, and separated into two, equally-thin pieces of solid metal. The chair must have been constructed in the earlier times when the electric chair was used, but it was still efficiently made.

I leaned down to remove the manacles from my legs, and that exposed the rest of the tentacles. They extended to their full length, reaching every corner of the room, while they grabbed at anything I wanted them to: Arms, legs, bodies, faces. There were a total of six people in the cement room, and, with the door, now, shut, I would be walking out of here as the only, single survivor. The mother, brother and three brutes were the only five I was worried about.

One of the metal pieces forced itself through a man's chest, while the other pinned the brother to the cement wall by the leg.

There! Free at last.

I stood up—taking in my surroundings—at the bloodshed and gore. I loved this! I loved it all! Oh, why couldn't every day be as crimson as _this_ one?

I took a step towards the nearest victim—the brother of Isaac whose intestines were scattered around him from the laceration by the tendrils.

"Macke," I stopped and looked amusingly over at the mother, huddled in the corner, eyes bright with fear but defiant. She held a communicator in her hands, fingers shaky as she held the call button.

There was a staticky reply, and the mother smiled, locking eyes with me.

"Kill him,"

My heart and mind were on different spectrums at the moment. My brain was smoothing over pain sensors left agitated by my brutal interrogation, mending nerves and skin that had been damaged before my capture, while my chest was filled with a blackened void. A hollow abyss so dark that it sucked out the very essence of my soul—all that was left, anyway.

"Yes, ma'am." Came the reply from the butler.

The tendrils retracted from their playtime, releasing all the corpses they had been teasing. They were on the mother swifter then one could blink, coiling around her throat, slithering into the soft skin of her body, pouring blood and carnage from her veins.

There was a barely audible cry of fear, before the sound of a shotgun blast erupted from the small device in her hands, too loud and too real to have been the reality I found myself in. The noise ricocheted around the solid walls, and each echo clawed at my chest, trying to rip apart my heart.

My head shot back, eyes pointed in some direction, at the ceiling. On and on my vision went, piercing the walls until they landed on the still, silvery and black form. The small patches of darkness in the grey spread, covering its entire body as it continued to lay, unmoving, unliving, against one of the walls.

The tentacles shot away from the mother, retreating into my back as I felt anger and water in my eyes.

There was a flash—more of darkness then of light—and I found myself in that same room, seen the butler standing over my poor loves form, seen him still holding the gun.

The butler didn't get a chance to react when he spotted me at the corner of his vision. I was on him in an instant—tendrils unfurling, roars emitted. My jaws wrapped themselves around his jugular, teeth slicing into flesh, disturbing the river of blood that flowed from his heart.

I didn't get to kill him, however.

I just barely got a taste of his blood before something ripped me and the body apart. The gore splattered across the wooden floors, the connection breaking, and I struck out at the creature holding me.

Tendrils cut into skin, and I landed a bit gracefully, on all fours, snarling as the thing wailed out in pain, unseen in the darkness of the room.

Breaking glass signaled that more of those creatures were entering. I seen the tall man's relaxed movements, and animosity flared up at the foundation of my soul, the very center.

Inside of my mind, more of those spherical, white rooms appeared—showing creatures that were all in attendance around me, those that I had encountered, had once heard of. They were all there, statue-like, each with their own room, waiting for me to obtain the things that made them special, made them dangerous.

Jeff the Killer—Smile Dog—Ben—the Willow Men. Every last one of them!

_He had to die_.

_No!_ My mind fought back against the thin man's words. I backed up against the wall, to where I knew Isaac's body was located. _He could have stayed alive!_

_ Tellia! _The yell almost made me back down. It was inhuman, too shrill to be created by anything mortal. It almost sounded like a growl. _Stop this child's play; He would have died anyway! He is nothing to us, Tellia_.

I fell silent, quietly raging…

I straightened to my normal height after a thought entered my head. The unseen hands moved Isaac's corpse and Macke's unconscious body into the shadows, and I fled through the door of the room, throwing the doors shut and barricading them using the tendrils as I continued to run.

The hallways were long and dark, and it wasn't long before I felt the dreadful presence of the Slenderman close behind. I rounded a sharp corner, and almost instantly vaulted down a small flight of stairs.

_Where are you going?_

I ignored the Slenderman's almost innocent question, and continued running. The walls pulsed between their regular appearance, and the abnormal appearance of being covered in bleeding letters and numbers. I ignored the fact that faces were seeping into the wall paper, opening their mouths to scream at me. Ghastly hands reached out at me, but I was too quick, too out of reach.

Behind me, I could almost sense the thin man's uneasiness, through the small connection we held. He tried to call me back, to get me to stop, and I almost smiled at the tone in his mental words. He almost sounded… _scared_.

All of this was not in my goal, however. Because, as I finally reached that door, reached that room that was my destination, I didn't care about those things that crept around in the night. I was focused on pure, unhesitant revenge.

I opened door that led into the little cement room, the one that held the electric chair, and the slaughtered bodies.

I stopped into the room, finding the mother and brother still alive, still clinging to life. The brother looked pale, near death.

The tendrils shut and locked the door just as Slenderman appeared there, closing it in his non-face. I nearly laughed at that, but my mind was focused on more important things at the moment.

"Hello," I greeted cheerfully to the survivors, despite my inner turmoil, ripping Macke from the shadows and throwing his sleeping form at the wall next to them. He landed a bit roughly, and I beamed at this. "I hope you've all been having a good day, because it's just about to get _better_."


End file.
